Here's something I wrote up a few days back that some on the list might (or might not) find interesting, but I'd welcome feedback nonetheless:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- http://blog.quinthar.com/2011/01/how-piracy-will-hyperlocalize-with-mesh.html While I don't think a pirate mesh is on the near horizon, I do think it's entirely feasible -- and the easiest way to accelerate its arrival will be to inconvenience piracy on the internet. Regardless, as a fun thought exercise I imagine it'll happen like this: 1) Somebody packages up a software radio onto a convenient USB stick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio 2) Because it's just software, the same hardware can be used for essentially any wireless activity. First it'll probably just be a universal wireless broadband card, with modules to connect to every cellular network in the world. It'll start out targeted to travelers. It'll also include GPS, AM/FM, wifi, and pretty much everything you could want because, well, why not. It's software; it can do it all. 3) It'll be instantly "unlocked" by the open source community, assuming it's not in fact built by said community in the first place: http://gnuradio.org/redmine/wiki/gnuradio 4) A whole new generation of wireless protocol research will be unleashed by universities and individuals alike, with a clear focus on mesh technology merely because that's the new hotness. 5) To start, mesh software will just be run by a few crazy hackers as a background process while using their universal wireless cards, which they use because it's easier than dealing with wifi. Node density will be low and largely limited to toy apps like chat, single file transfer, etc. More in the vein of being a proof of concept. 6) There will be some place where a critical mass of node density occurs: probably a university with a combination of a strong engineering school and overzealous network administrator. It'll always be possible for one person to get a torrent off the real internet, but then the rest of the dorm will get it via the mesh. 7) The next semester, students who don't really have any idea about the mesh or have any interest in a universal wireless device will realize "if I just buy this thing and let some dude install software on my laptop, I can get a ton of great content without risk of detection by my university." The device's main purpose will gradually transition away from its advertised and intended purpose, and repurposed by pirates. 8) This will slowly, quietly grow. The hardware manufacturers will initially be totally unaware, but gradually adopt a policy of "don't ask don't tell". More and more students will sign up. As people go home, students who got their content from the device won't even know how to share it without the device; they'll convince their friends to buy it just so they can easily share the content while home on break. 9) The software will get better and better. Torrent apps will auto-detect if the device is there, and will try to pull from it first. The torrent protocol itself will adjust to pull from nearby mesh neighbors. Gradually, piracy will go hyperlocal. 10) The hardware will get better and better. All laptops will come with this built in, because why have a dedicated wifi card (or Sprint card) when you can have a single universal card? Why have a card at all when it can be done as part of the main chip? After all, it's just software -- CPUs run software too. 11) At some point Apple really starts to take notice. Apple products will recognize a "neighborhood" network that operates across the mesh -- like Bonjour on steroids. It advertises its security and speed advantages over "the internet", which gradually becomes used exclusively for what it's good at -- moving data over incredible distances under watchful eye of the state -- versus the mesh, which is for small distances with anonymity. Something like the above *will* happen. It's inevitable. It's not even that creative. And it'll probably happen sooner than we expect. Sound unlikely? Remember those researchers that cracked GSM at the CCC 2 weeks ago? They did it with "Universal Software Radio Peripheral" http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/security-bullet-in-10000166/gsm-crack-inexpensive-says-researcher-10021405/ You can buy one at http://www.ettus.com/ And yes, it plugs in via USB. -david _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
