Slashdot Mirror
Tibet's Mesh
siriuskase writes "Volunteers are building a low-cost wireless mesh network to provide cheap, reliable data and telephony to community. I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."
Finally, free Tibet!
If you want to set up a mesh network in your own neighbourhood then you can take a look at a free, open source mesh network software package from Mitre corp. I used to use it in a past life to build networks that were adequate for VOIP with some tuning (and a lot of broadcast voodoo), and the ability to route traffic via more than one end node is fantastic. Set up a base station in every home with an 802.11g backhaul (and decent antennas) to provide the basic mesh, terminate in one or two houses with a fast cable/DSL connection and bang, instant multihomed network for everyone worth pi geek points.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
With all of the innovations that the online porn industry has created thanks to the large demand I can almost see the porn industry helping finance meshes such as this so they can reach a larger market worldwide.
Some of the technical challenges he faces are unique. This may be one of the only networks in the world where antennas must be monkey-proofed. "Monkeys are everywhere," says Ben-David. "Often, you'll see a huge, gorilla-sized monkey hang on to an antenna, swing from it, eat it, try to break it. We lost a lot of cables that way, but now we use very strong equipment so that even monkeys can't break it."
Its the evil monkey in the close conspiracy to bring about the dark age of man, we can't let this happen! I mean just look at planet of the apes
This is really cool. So if everyone over there just got bit torrent they could have lot's of fun without being stalked?
+1 Agree -1 Disagree
. . . here's another fine mesh you've gotten us into!
I always thought if someone could organize it, there are enough wireless APs out there that could form a type of second web. Since it would be owned by private owners and upgraded by private owners it would be a wikinet. Where I live I have been working on a plan to join all the aps I work on for clients into one giant network. Need a feasable way to do it though. Bandwith sharing, a method for hopping across the least used APs, and a self healing topology kind of like a token ring. The technologies are out there now if someone smarter than I can pull it all together that would be something.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Perhaps a push for technology in Tibet could give the Dalai Lama an opportunity to set up his own blog? I mean....maybe it sounds like a trivial thing to some people, but if I recall, he has written a book...or at least one in recent times has written a book that was an interesting read for me.
A proud 50/50% Italian-American.
" I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."
Then it would be a de-facto government. A bunch of overlaping competeting wireless meshes would be safer.
Wouldn't we all?
Ultimately, those mesh networks are going to be tied into Gov't or corporate owned backbones. Mesh networks are not going to be the solution for developing countries and I don't understand how anyone expects an independant mesh network to magically appear.
Like anything else, it will require (expensive) investments in infrastructure. Or am I missing something?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Between the relatively low reliability of wireless access points (compared to wired connections) and the fact that there will be bottlenecks at the wired connection(s) they are propagating, are wireless mesh networks really the best way to go (even discounting the monkey issue)? True, it will be better than nothing, but it sounds pricey and difficult to a degree that the benefits won't be worth it.
With purchase of Tibet at regular price.
(As an aside, I was hoping this was an article mentioning my friend's enterprise AJAX platform: TIBET.)
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
"I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."
There are going to be costs, even if it is started by volunteers. So, where's the money coming from?
Personally, seeing the way that the commercial providers behave, I'd go for gov't run, or at least gov't managed even if it were run by someone else. They could provide low speed access for free to everyone but charge for everything else.
Oh no, here we go again.
"Instead of technology, we should [provide food for the starving children / free the oppressed people / solve everyones problems]."
I know this will generate many doh's, but you are missing the point: with access to the internet comes actual freedom.
Or will they be just another convenient excuse for even harsher Chinese military oppression.
And if the Chinese Government spins it as "those communist Tibetians aren't paying MPAA and RIAA royalties and are pirating Windows with this network", I bet the Bush administration will back them 100%.
Maybe a world-wide mesh would best be implemented by licensed volunteers, like the ham radio model, but without the FCC. Maybe the EFF instead. :)
Well it's a start.
I mean come on, what's better, un-freed Tibet, or un-freed Tibet with access to a (possibly) uncensored internet?
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
-1 redundant.
In don't have a proof handy, but intuitevely I have the feeling that unless the links on the mesh network provide some insane amount of bandwidth, there is a certain limit to how many nodes (of course it would depend on topology also) can operate smoothly. Beyond a certain point a certain node would basically be using all bandwidth to route packets back and forth, effectively becoming the bottleneck. I don't know if this could be alleviated for ultra-dense topologies though. Any good references, anyone?
The article seems to be /.'d, so here's some additional information on this.
The submitter of this article said, "I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."
I'd love to see everyone in their dream house with a luxury car getting 250 MPG that's not dependent on any government or corporation.
I think both those statements have the same likelyhood of coming true.
I'd guess that 98% of Americans consider sewer, water, and electrical essential no matter where they live. I would guess that internet access still falls below those three. Fat-pipe internet access may eventually be a true utility that is natuarlly expected to exist anywhere, but it isn't there yet. Even when it does, why would anyone think it wouldn't depend on any government or corporation? All major utilities require BOTH government and corporations. If anything, it will move further away from small local ISP's (like internet and electricity started with). Huge infrastructure with high reliability and reasonable cost demands this type of change.
Having recently come out of a community planning meeting, our small town of 600+ has determined that wireless internet access for all could be a big another way to try and lure younger folks (like myself) that are choosing between other small towns in the area. I'm in the very first stages of feasabiltiy - looking at all the options. The problems of course come down to who pays for it. In the case of our aging community, a lot of folks don't see the need or even want access. That means they don't want any of their tax dollars going to fund it (never mind that my tax dollars fund their senior center and senior bus). On top of that, the local telco isn't very excited to see their individual DSL subscriptions go away either. Then there is the issue of hardware and support. With a town of this size, it is nearly impossible to have 24x7 support. These are just a few of the things that go into the hopper when you're looking at building the infrastructure of small towns which at the end of the day really are what make up the mesh between the 2-5 metro locations in each state. Doing this without local government or a corporate sponsor will be difficult. If this article has any detail (when it's available again!), I hope I can learn some slick new tricks.
I will contribute 20 km to this network. I have a free wifi zone about 2km radius around my house, and two 24db antennas that connects to nearby users upto 10km away.
a in.cgi
You can find me in San jose, CA.
Maybe sombody can carry me to google in Mountain View?
What you need and where to get it:
Link analysis for free:
http://www.ecommwireless.com/cgi-local/wireless.m
Single antenna AP: Dlink DWL-2100AP
Good low cost antennas and accessories: http://hyperlinktech.com/
(Dlink connector is called RP-SMA)
Times Microwave will ship you a free sample of 20' of LMR-400 with connectors (DIY)
Suggestions:
1. Dont use "Cantennas".
2. Yagi is better than parabolic
3. Use spark arrestors when you go outdoor
4. Use 2.4GHz splitters and hook up more antennas to one AP.
5. Use filters when co-locating APs
Applications:
Asterisk: Free phones for the neighbourhood
VLC media player: Everybody shares their movies
Will not really need that big of a neighbourhood before you dont even need to connect to the net or the phone sevice or TV!
"Fix it"
In Soviet Tibet mesh frees you...
Sorry!!!
"I would love to see a free wireless mesh that's not dependent on any government or corporation take over the world."
So you're saying that this mesh network in Tibet isn't dependent on the Chinese government's blessing?
_Vishal www.squad9.com
"Freedom is free of the need to be free"
To put it crudely, it doesn't matter if the Tibetans can "free their mind" if there is zero chance that their "ass will follow".
The Dalai Lama has been in exile in India since 1959 & their current constitutional Gov't has been in exile since their Constitution was "promulgated" in 1963.
The man is 71 years old. He spent 24 years in Tibet and 47 years (almost twice as long) living outside his home land.
Access to the internet != freedom
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Siriuskase, your post is an interesting one but I don't understand the jab against corporations that you threw in at the end. Corporations are merely voluntary associations between individuals. Buying products from a corporation is voluntary. Becoming an employee of a corporation is voluntary. That sounds like a model of a free and open society to me. Nobody is coerced into any transactions with a corporation. That's a lot different then dealing with an oppressive government.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
http://www.bsnl.co.in/
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'd love to see a wireless mesh card that could be plugged into laptops and desktops easily. The proposed card would have two functions:
1.) Work as a standard 802.11 card that can connect to multiple acess points at the same time.
2.) Broadcast it's own 802.11 Access point connection so that other laptops/desktops in the area can share the connection.
In addition to this card, I'd like to have a setting on my wireless router that allows me to create a bandwidth limited open access point that anyone in range can use and a separate WPA encrypted access point that I can connect to. I'd probably dedicate about 1 mbps of my 4-5 mbps connection to the open access point so that I'm guaranteed a 3 mbps+ connection for my systems.
If everyone had a similar setup, and some simple software was written to connect to multiple access points and route requests, we'd have a wireless mesh network without requiring everyone to switch to a new protocol.
This might all be possible now, in some way that I'm not aware of, but this is just my idea of how to make something like this happen using protocols that are already out there.
No Sigs!
The article's not about Tibet, it's about Tibetan exiles in India. This is made clear in the very first paragraph. This is a sad commentary on how few Slashdoters RTFA. In this case, neither the submitter nor the editor did, or else they wouldn't have put "Tibet" in the title. And not a single poster has commented on this mistake so far. Very sad.
I second the above poster, Dharamsala, INDIA will never be Tibet. Yes, the article is about bringing WiFi to Tibetans (in exile) but it certainly IS NOT about bringing WiFi to Tibet.
Nevertheless, thanks for posting it, I enjoyed the article. For those who have never been there, if you ever visit India consider going WAY out of your way to visit Dharamsala. Himichal Pradesh is probably one of the poorest states in India (after Bihar), but it is rather pretty up in the mountains. It certainly does not have the climate of Tibet either, don't worry about freezing to death in the winter, etc. To sum it up, if you ever read Tintin in Tibet as a kid (and liked it) Dharamsala is worth a visit. That said, Dharamsala is about the only thing worth seeing in HP (not kidding). If you go, bring some old computer gear to donate.
If you go, stay at the guest house down the hill from the Dalai Lama's monastery, it is run by a cool Geshe (Geshe is like the equivalent of a Ph.D. in Tibetan Buddhism) who speaks English well and who is also quite kind.
Net connectivity in Tibet is surprisingly cheap and fast, alteast in the main towns, certainly a lot better than in Dharamsala - which has broadband access, but it's a little bit unreliable.
In Tibet - even in some very remote towns, such as Nyalam, you can see rooms of kids playing MMORPG games in crowded internet cafes - with connections with a similar speed to those in Europe or the US. Of course they are sitting behind the Great Firewall but there are advantages of being part of China's very developed net infrastructure.
Tell that to the people of the middle ages who died of the plague. If the people are not willing to hold the cards (tech is one) you will at best lose anything you may have gained form them - but the worse and more realistic is your enemy makes use of them.
Great Intellect...
Well over hundred thousand Tibetans have since escaped the Chinese rule over their fatherland ("phayul" in Tibetan) and settled in refugee communities in India and in third countries. A large number have died attempting to escape, either by the harsh elements of the Himalayas or in the hands of the Chinese military hunting them down.
A great many Tibetans, mainly young children travelling in groups accompanied by a couple of adults, have also made the perilous journey into India to be able to study (free subjects without Chinese indoctrination and in their own language) in the exile-run schools in India (like the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala) before returning back to their families in the Chinese-occupied Tibet.
Now, this Wi-Fi mesh network, which is being built by some great foreign volunteers in coordination with the Tibetan exile administration, is aimed at connecting the various local institutions in a seriously hilly areas of the Himalayan foothills. The objective is to enable the sharing of information between these locations, not to create a first-person-shooter gaming network. The exiled Tibetans are extremely serious about their education *and* their ability to communicate and campaign for the freedom of their homeland in the modern world. This mesh network is aimed at facilitating both of these needs.
Incidentally, since the Wired story went public on Thursday, and possibly thanks to some blindly "patriotic" chinese hackers learning about this Wi-Fi mesh from this Slashdot story, the Tibetan exiles' network has now come under DDoS attack after initial scanning from IPs in China.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
A real wireless mesh site :) http://www.air2air.co.uk/ - includes a little live camera demo. Tell me what you think.
Is there anything fundmental stopping us from doing the same? Yes, yes, I know, we may not really need it, though the idea certainly has something going for it even though most of us can easily get online. What I mean is - how about the legal side of it? I can imagine that there may be laws controlling these things, which they seem to be happily free from in Tibet, evil communists though they be.
Quote from ddos article:
"It was down for over 30 minutes," said Ben-David. "I couldn't log in because thousands of http processes were running, demanding resources from the MySql database."
Good admin would have configured mysql/apache/middletier in a way that a) apache rejects excessive requests b) middletier doesnt clog up the mysql connections c) mysql would only allow certain amount of concurrent requests d) all of the above.
Stuff like above happens when someone just drops prebuild binaries with default configuration to the box and starts to host a website.
yush
Having an open network is nice, but I've got two questions:
1) what do you do to keep your neighbor from hacking your computer and looking at all of your important files?
2) what are you going to do when someone uses your network to do something illegal and/or immoral like sending spam and the authories decide it is time to make an example out of you.
Unless I can make sure I'm reasonably safe from these two likely senarios, I'm going to keep my wifi locked down and only allow me to connect.
Website mentioned in yesterday's article experienced a DOS. They suspect a Chinese based attack, not a slashdot effect.
"There was no immediately evident single source for the attack, but it started right after an extensive series of China-based scans," said Ben-David.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
On the other hand, if they had Chinese telecom companies running it, they'd get much better service, even out in the hinterlands. I've dealt with both sides for various customers, and while China does have serious problems (more so with CNC than CT), they've got a much better understanding of the benefits to the country and the end users. China's basically a dual-monopoly environment, and they've been much much more competent than the Indian ex-monopolies.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks