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DIY: Building A Wireless Freenet
techmuse writes: "Moshe Bar has an excellent article at Byte describing how he designed a wireless freenet for his community, and convinced his neighbors to participate. Most importantly, the freenet has resulted in new forms of interaction and strengthened social ties within his own local community (the inverse of what happens on the wider Internet)." And since consumer-grade wireless access points are now cheaper than a large hard drive, this sort of guide is especially welcome.
I have a feeling it's because many people don't care about internet access enough to pay $70/month for it, and many more (myself included) would rather pay $40/month for a personal DSL connection, considering that if you get a good provider, a DSL connection can be every bit as fast as T1.
As for all the other perks, I doubt joe schmoe has a use for unlimited webspace or sees a need for backed up filespace on the network.
Hotels and dorm rooms are an entirely different issue in many peoples' minds, especially since the costs are very different. . . My school has an OC3 connection, but when you divide the cost among 1,200 students, the cost is much less per person. As for hotels, if they even jump the price by $5/night, that ends up being a potential of $150/month per room, but to the person leasing the room it's still an okay price because if you want internet access bad enough to have it in your hotel room, you're probably willing to pay $5 for a night of it.
i think he was thinking something like 802.11b, which runs at 11Mb. The real problem with a system like this is the killer latency, and to a smaller extent routing. Conventional routing techniques assume relatively stable nodes with relatively constant latency and bandwidth. A truly dynamic, ad-hoc network isn't something i've ever seen implemented in a stable and functional fashion.
Of course, this isn't what i do for a living, so can anybody else shed some light on potential options?
If I were to open my wireless access point to neighbors, I'm liable for their behavior. My DSL provider isn't going to want to hear "It wasn't me, it was my neighbor.". So if my neighbor gets busted for kiddy porn, or for hacking some vulnerable server out there, I don't want to be the one paying the fines/jail time, etc.
So for now, the only people that will be allowed access to my internet pipe are people I know and trust.
Ahem, would you care to back this up?
The author did back it up. He got together with his neighbors and had some beer. He's got each neighbor working with each neighbor next door to assure access. They're talking on IRC.
I don't know about you, but that's way ahead of my relationship with my neighbors.
-Waldo
Granted, it's a bit more embarassing when the guy down the street reads your love letter to Celine Dion, but why not balk when it's Earthlink, the FBI, or anybody freakin' else.
Because the simple fact of the matter is, what you don't know can't hurt you. If Billy Bob the FBI agent reads all about my affairs with that English teacher, no harm is done. But if Suzie Q next door to me reads about it, and tells her mom, who tells my wife, then I'm in some deep shit.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I went to a meeting last night held by some guys from consume the net, a London-based community wireless project. The question-and-answer session brought up some questions that didn't seem to have been solved:
Overall, the guys running the project were helpful, and obviously trying to move forward by consensus. I think I'll buy the kit and get involved. However, there remain many problems with such schemes, both technical and legal, and it's only worthwhile getting involved at this early stage for the 'how does it work' factor.