Wow, that's really, really awesome. I'm super excited by the potential of software-defined radios, and combining that with BGAN is just brilliant.
-david On 06/14/2011 08:46 AM, Aaron Huslage wrote: > I've been working on a similar, but safer, system called Tethr.us (as in > US, not USA) for the past 6 months or so. I'm at the point of looking > for funding to build a prototype. > > It's a satellite modem (BGAN) with OpenBTS, wifi access point and a > gateway server called Tethr.org. Any piece can be powered off > individually via the admin UI. It has NO mesh networking and all radios, > by default, run at ~100mW so they don't travel far enough to be a huge > security risk. The onboard server provides DTN or sync services so that > the system is useful if you just connect with a wire and only turn on > the radios once in a while. On the backend, everything is optionally > proxied out via TOR (to conserve bandwidth we don't do it on the gateway > side, but we could). > > I've targeted it at journalists who understand the risks of running > radios in a hostile environment, but anyone can certainly benefit. I > know the limitations of BGAN and would love to replace it with something > else, but the ubiquity, battery capacity and antenna size make it suited > for this sort of work. > > If anyone is interested in hearing more, let me know and we can talk > about it on another thread here or off-list. > > On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Michael Rogers <m...@gmx.com > <mailto:m...@gmx.com>> wrote: > > On 14/06/11 04:42, Julian Cain wrote: > > On Jun 13, 2011, at 8:38 PM, Jan Brittenson <b...@rockgarden.net > <mailto:b...@rockgarden.net>> > > wrote: > >> I think all you need is something that can be turned on at specific > >> times, to get a message out. Then shut it off. People will have > >> their phones on, then all of a sudden they get service, a text > >> message or two, after which the service promptly drops again. A > >> station only needs to be on long enough to get the message out. > > > > ... and to receive the acknowledgement regarding said message. > > Acks may or may not be necessary, depending on the protocol. With a > Usenet-style flooding protocol it's sufficient to transmit each message > opportunistically to everyone you meet and discard duplicates - no acks > are needed. > > >> I think the main challenge is how to prevent a regime from > >> hijacking the network. This will probably require an organized > >> structure with isolation, redundancy, a revocation protocol, and > >> careful safeguarding at the top. > > Funnily enough I'd argue for the opposite approach - the way to make it > robust isn't to safeguard the top, it's to have no top. ;-) > > Imagine a completely distributed publish-subscribe network organised > into "channels", where each channel's subscribers flood the channel's > messages among themselves using a simple Usenet-like protocol. > > How do we prevent agents of the regime from drowning such a system with > spam? > > Solution 1: Restrict who can post to each channel. (For example, by > associating each channel with a public/private key pair - subscribers > discard any messages that aren't signed with the private key.) That > would create a bloggish/twitterish style of interaction where each > channel would have one author (or a small group of mutually trusting > authors) and an unlimited number of readers. > > Solution 2: Peer moderation. In this model, any subscriber can post > signed messages to a channel, but each subscriber will only forward > messages signed by authors who that subscriber has manually marked as > not being spammers. Thus new authors can't reach a wide audience until > they've won the trust of some other subscribers. > > Solution 2 involves more work for subscribers than solution 1, but it > allows multi-way discussions, whereas solution 1 could potentially > devolve into people shouting past each other. Fortunately both solutions > require similar infrastructure, so we can build them both into the same > system and see which one people prefer. > > > The number of dissident operated devices need only outweigh a > > "regime" in order to protect the network. The same rules apply to > > most overlay networks. > > Not really - most P2P and wireless overlays can be jammed by a small > number of malicious nodes, including the mesh protocols that have been > discussed for these "internet in a suitcase" type ideas. > > Cheers, > Michael > _______________________________________________ > p2p-hackers mailing list > p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com <mailto:p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com> > http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers > > > > > -- > Aaron Huslage > http://blog.hact.net > IM: AIM - ahuslage; Yahoo - ahuslage; MSN - husl...@gmail.com > <mailto:husl...@gmail.com>; GTalk - husl...@gmail.com > <mailto:husl...@gmail.com>; Skype - huslage > > > > _______________________________________________ > p2p-hackers mailing list > p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com > http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers@lists.zooko.com http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
