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If the authorities shut down the internet or it fails for other reasons, neighborhoods and even entire cities still have the ability to communicate with each other using a "mesh network" whose nodes are everybody's wireless adapters. But building such a mesh network requires a skilled network programmer. If I understand it right (and the computer gurus on this list please correct me), the integration of the BATMAN software into the latest linux kernel has made such an ad-hoc mesh network much more feasible in the years to come. It will not be immediate, I assume there will be a few years until such a mesh network will be an option which a lay person can select with a mouse click. Just in time for the next climate-change disaster. We can prepare for it already now by switching to linux. I have experiences with the recent Ubuntu Desktop releases, which are really user friendly and easy to install. If you want to make your neighborhood more resilient in a disaster, convince your neighbors now to switch to linux (or at least double-boot their computers), so that their computers can become nodes in such a mesh network when this kernel has entered the main linux distros and the applications for it have been built. Links: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214686/New_Linux_kernel_goes_faster http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_38 http://www.open-mesh.org/wiki/2011-03-17-batman-adv-and-the-penguin Hans G. Ehrbar ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
