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A Mobile Phone Mesh That Can Survive Carrier Network Failure
bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that researchers from Australia and Singapore are developing a wireless ad-hoc mesh networking technology that uses mobile handsets to share and carry information. The mesh network will make use of Bluetooth or Wi-fi to swap information between handsets — even if the mobile phone network was offline. One potential scenario could be during an emergency where the mobile phone network was unavailable or clogged. In a city centre, users could set up the network to share information, video, photographs and, depending on the final client applications, even locate friends and loved ones. One benefit of developing such a technology would be that users sharing content between their devices would use the wireless communications technology already built into their phones and not bandwidth from their mobile provider. The researchers from the National ICT Australia and Singapore's A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research hope to demonstrate the technology within two years, according to NICTA project leader Dr Roksana Boreli.'This is an early stage in the research project,' she said. 'We are addressing how you would quickly establish trust between devices, how you would discover them and share the information,' Boreli said."
Screw only for emergencies why don't they just put the providers out of business. No more monthly fees.
How is this going to work effectively when we already know how quickly wifi/bluetooth can drain your phone battery?
Trust = Ability to violate established security policy
Don't trust, only verify.
Encrypt information you want to send, then I don't care if 50 drug dealers, pedophiles, Catholic priests, scientologists, or other low-lives are involved in the chain, so long as the message reaches my intended recipient who has the proper key to decrypt it.
my social networks will stay intact after the apocalypse.
Why is this couched in terms of emergency communication?
P.S. the answer is money
Great. Just wait until the phone companies use this as a hack for when they refuse to upgrade towers and other infrastructure. Battery life suffers, data anonymity suffers, service suffers. It'll all be in the contract and there won't be a damn thing we could do about it...except go back to smoke signals.
In a city centre, users could set up the network to share information, video, photographs and, depending on the final client applications, even locate friends and loved ones.
So... how long until the news media starts shilling that file sharing is "illegal"?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
They are horrible at consistently provisioning accounts. I have a G1, my father has a G1. We were sitting in the same vehicle. I had T-Mobile service and EDGE. He was stuck on Joe Bob's GSM Network with no data. T-Mobile wasn't even available on his available networks list. The customer service droids are worthless and refuse to help.
Hasn't stuff like this been around forever? Certainly HAM & CB counts for something. Not to mention SINCGARS and EPLRS radio networks. And these are old. The military has been playing around with IP-based mesh networks for quite a while.
When I can tell my provider to take a hike and just use this for calls?
I've got a Virgin phone and that network has an annoying hole right here on the farm where I've been all summer. At least it's well documented on the coverage map. And I'm going home next week. Just thinking, I could string some connecting nodes down the driveway using a mesh network, or how 'bout connecting to a landline.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Strikes me that mesh networks would be fantastic for aviation. The FAA is in the starting stages of their next-gen ATC system, that will solve all the problems now in place with airplanes and trying not to hit something else. Air traffic control still depends on RADAR and transponders, which are fraught with problems. For example, aircraft typically just announce where they are, like:
"Smallville traffic, Cessna N1235 altitude three thousand, 5 miles northwest of the field, making left downwind for three three".
Which means: "For the airport in Smallville, I'm a Cessna with a License number of N1235, I'm three thousand feet above sea level, I'm 5 miles away from the field coming from the northwest, and I'm going to maneuver to the runway pointed North north west. (compass heading 330)"
It's almost all trust-based, self announced. If you make a mistake, and announce NorthEast instead of NorthWest, the likelyhood of an accident rises sharply. Yet it's a mistake that's simple to make. I've made it - announcing East instead of West, etc. When I notice, I'll re-announce, but it's still error prone.
But a simple mesh network that allows aircraft to automatically broadcast their location (latitude/longitude/altitude from GPS) in a simple packet in a protocol similar to that used for wifi or ethernet, where aircraft closer than 200 miles will rebroadcast (aircraft on the ground have a broadcast range of less than 5 miles, at 5 thousand feet the range extends to hundreds of miles) and the result would be that all aircraft would know about all other aircraft with perhaps a 10 second latency, even in very heavy traffic.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
... it is called TETRA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Trunked_Radio
The SIM card has cryptographic functions. Now, the bazillion dollar question is there a vaguely consistent cryptographic hook at the phone application layer?
The follow-on statement for us Yanks is this will never happen. Any attempts to make it so will be summarily ignored by the carriers. Why? Because it contributes to the idea that the carrier is not necessary.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Has the ubiquity of Apple really gotten this bad?
It is "itnews", or "ITnews", not "iTnews".
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
A nice follow-on to Wireless Network Modded To See Through Walls , it seems like pairing ZigBee with some cheap GPS chips (say, SiRF Star III) would pretty much do the job. Maybe you could put three of them in there for failover to satisfy reliability requirements, the whole thing would still come in under two hundred bucks for a prototype. :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This idea is as old as the hills (or at least mobile phones). It will never really work well though because who wants to waste their phones battery on relaying other people's data?
Virgin phone ... has an annoying hole
There's your problem right there.
We are addressing how you would quickly establish trust between devices...
In a word, don't. GSM phones today already have a PRNG built-in, which is specific to that SIM card. Use it! The only pieces of information any device in between the clients is source, destination, and maybe some QoS bits, and a few other transport-related fields. The content should be end-to-end encrypted, just like it would with IPv6.
Cell phone networks don't have strong trust models as it is right now -- so there's little point in making your "ad hoc" network more secure than the real one. Realistically, you just need to make it as secure as it is today (a low bar to beat). The goal here is rapid communication, not rapid secure communication.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Research into Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) has been going on since the 90s. This is one of the perfect applications that will likely never come to pass due to commercial interests. There are so many options for securing it that it'll make your head spin -- choose your desired use and there's a security scheme for that. And yes, the military is looking into deploying such networks at various levels of device capability because its far more practical than an infrastructure based network.
I think this sort of decentralized network is a great idea - it's something we need to see more of, and has tons of uses.
Can you imagine if an application was released that created just such an "off of the network" mesh and would work with most phones and it caught on like Napster did? Can you imagine how the mobile providers would go apeshit if large groups of people circumvented their network and were able to communicate on their own?
T-Mobile may have a crappy cell network, but they're the one cell company I actually respect. They fixed glitches with the iPhone on their network even though they didn't have to, they have the most open cell phones, and they don't neuter their cell phones (like Verizon does).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Isn't this the way that the information network is suposedly done in Diamond Age? As long as the encryption is good enough and the bandwidth wide enough, there's no reason such a system couldn't work. At present, I doubt that the second condition is true, however. Constantly sending and recieving other people's data is going to tax your device's already too small battery, which will of course cause people to turn the feature off, which will severly hamper it's usefulness.
So...they're talking about a Skype-like protocol that operates full-time on existing handsets?
For those of who who are unaware, Skype operates as a P2P client, with your voice chats being routed through other Skype clients within the network. Some nodes (particularly long-lived ones that are well provisioned for bandwidth) are designated for taking more of the routing duties than others. Basically, they're talking about doing the same thing here.
Essentially, all they're suggesting is a version of that client that runs as a background process on a handset so that it can forward and route calls between other users of that handset. I'm certainly in favor of the idea. As others have pointed out, it has the potential to negate the need for carriers altogether, but it would also have a few severe drawbacks if it was used as the sole means of connecting handsets.
For instance, in geographical areas that are sparsely populated, if a small number of handsets exist on the border between two neighboring areas that are densely populated, those handsets would get routed a significant amount of the traffic. As such, people who live, say, halfway between two major cities might find that their batteries drain incredibly fast since they're constantly having to route calls between other users. That would only exacerbate the problem, since those routes would then go offline as the handsets powered down, leaving even less handsets to take the load. Problems like that are avoided with the centralization that we currently enjoy with cell phone towers, but would have to be addressed if we wanted to switch to only using a mesh.
There's also the issue of guaranteeing connectivity. If we're relying solely on this mesh, it's possible that you're not in range of anyone else's handset. While that issue also exists within a current cell network, the problem here is that dead zones cannot always be foreseen in advance, since people entering or exiting your vicinity could create dynamic dead zones. The nice thing about the current cell network is that coverage is supposed to be guaranteed, whereas no such guarantee could be made with a mesh; your service might cut out at any time, particularly in rural areas.
There's also the issue of reaching critical mass, since the mesh would be utterly worthless if you didn't have other clients in your locale with which you could communicate and route. If you established a transitionary time to switch from cell to mesh, you might have some success, but you couldn't do it immediately.
As for mixing the mesh with the existing carriers...seems like a good idea for emergencies and what not. I know that when hurricane Ike struck here a few years back, things were really spotty for a few days simply due to the networks getting swamped and some of the towers being taken down outright by the storm. This sort of thing has the potential to supplement the existing network and take some of the burden off of it, especially during difficult times.
I meant to reply to this comment. I did not. I are smart, so you should read my comments. Honest.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Forget independent scientists, Japan's government has been testing this for a number of years. It would be mandated in all new handsets so once there was a major disaster (and Japan loves it's natural disasters) emergency communication would be possible. Like the Emergency Broadcast System only not unidirectional.
Several years ago I saw a demo where text messages were relayed from phone to phone across most of Tokyo without ever connecting to the infrastructure. It wouldn't be fast, but it would be invaluably helpful with rescue and recovery efforts.
Just one comment... battery life. If each user's cell phone had to relay messages on behalf of the 'mesh' it would probably be flat in not much time.
The HAM radio community already have active emergency planning groups and ideas about setting up disaster communications, the most important aspect is to moderate what makes it onto the airwaves. Watching streaming video of the disaster is probably not needed when a simple broadcast SMS would do.
As far back as DC14, Riley "Caezar" Eller gave a talk on MANET, the possible uses such a network (or an analogue) could have if used for ad-hoc cellular networking, and possible attacks against it. I recall the example he gave was of a bar in Seattle which is constructed of materials that attenuate or completely block cell coverage... except near the door. He suggested that a hybrid cellphone, one that could use regular cellular infrastructure and fail over to ad-hoc networking would allow phones near the door to act as conduits for phones inside... or something like that. I'm too lazy to find the actual talk, but the DefCon website has a brief synopsis.
It was definitely an interesting talk, and apparently well before its time if this is just making news now.
see the Direct Talk feature on most of its iDEN handsets.
http://www.nextel.com/en/services/walkietalkie/offnetwork.shtml
Rural areas was the first thing I thought about I imagine a line of farmers stretching between two big cities, and having to carry the entire load between them.
Would you be able to support this with some fixed nodes around the outskirts of densely populated areas that then connect to each other by a fibre? (I'm thinking like the internet, you need to have your backbones for the network to be anything resembling reliable.)
Is 1563649 a prime number?
This posting on Slashdot from October 4th 2001 really hit home, describing a "P2P SMS technique where individual handsets act as autonomous SMS relays". And why can't we do this? Would it require independance from cell carriers? With wednesdays report to congress on the failure to upgrade the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, maybe we do need an ad-hoc alternative.
(After feeling useless after 9/11 the October 2001 post got me thinking. By the end of November 2001 I had my first ham radio license, now I'm and Extra class and now when something happens I've usually been at an EOC, although the last couple of years have been supporting Red Cross.)
Wow, I guess it depends on where you live. I think I've gotten to the point where I wouldn't want to use anyone but T-Mobile. I mean seriously, fuck everyone else. And no, I'm not a shill, just someone whose life stopped getting interrupted with occasional getting-fucked-overs.
How much is AT&T or $PROVIDER going to compensate me for the use of my bandwidth and electricity?
Are they going to respect any bandwidth caps I wish to impose, even when I do not disclose them beforehand and instead insist that I am allowing them UNLIMITED MESHING through my phone?
Are they going to agree to forbid the routing of packets from VPN and tethering through my phone, even though I will be heavily advertising those features as benefits of my providing a connection point in this mesh network?
If not, then make joining the mesh network opt-in, please! Fair is fair!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A Mesh Network running on various home and mobile devices could be used to provide "free" Internet and phone services. Those that are willing to pay for a traditional Internet connection could hook up "gateways" for the Mesh Network to connect to the Internet (and thus VOIP) services. Like other posters note, this does consume battery/power/bandwidth, so it isn't exactly *free*. However, the more nodes on the network, the more capacity the network has (particularly if the devices can transmit with less power when close to other nodes). Nor would any node need to do any transmissions if a "grounded" node (one plugged into some reliable power source) can handle the traffic. A protocol could be developed to have nodes intelligently manage their power available/ transmission obligation trade offs. At least in dense node population situations.
There is no doubt that a back bone is needed to carry traffic distances. But like mass transit, the last mile is kinda a problem. A mesh network would be a great way to smooth out some of those "last mile" issues, provide coverage where coverage is spotty, and empower regular people to fix environments to work well. That's a huge step up from having to wait on your cell phone provider/ prison warden to decide to fix access.
I think you'd really have to work off of a plan like what you suggested. Not only would it serve to alleviate traffic (if a backbone can take the traffic, that means that you don't have to route it through a few dozen or hundred handsets), but it'd also be more reliable. The Internet is a great example of how something like this can be made to work, but again, we'd still be relying on some level of infrastructure, rather than being able to do away with it altogether. Until wireless is more ubiquitous, which may just be a few years away, I believe that we won't be able to implement a full mesh effectively.
Couldn't a creative individual develop an algorithm to create a public-private key system based on phone numbers. There is a possibility of backdoors (through manufacturers) but no more than the existing GSM system. One could simply place this information onto SIM cards. Of course a peer to peer network has faults but I don't see encryption being a difficult issue.
One potential scenario could be during an emergency where the mobile phone network was unavailable or clogged. In a city centre, users could set up the network to share information, video, photographs and, depending on the final client applications, even locate friends and loved ones.
The emergency scenario implies extended and widespread power outages. When you battery dies, it dies, and it just might take you with it.
The cell phone designer makes certain simplying assumptions: that you will be well within range of a commercial grade repeater mounted high and with a relatively unobstructed line of sight.
That you aren't trying to hop-scotch your way at street level across midtown Manhatten in a sleet storm.
You are going to need one hell of an algorithym to manage the load if you allow unrestricted traffic in photos and video under 9/11 conditions.
What's needed here most is the ability to send a brief - meanignful - text message.
Perfect for people with the iPhone since AT&T's network almost never works!
my current cell phone battery is 7W*hr, cell network uses transmit power in the ~1 watt while talking. Bluetooth is in the .1 watt category. So 7 hours of active use without this, or up to 70 hours of active use as part of a bluetooth hub. So if we have a bunch of smart phones wanting access, and one of them is plugged in and thus designated host, as long as a plugged in phone is within 10 bluetooth hops then it would be a huge net savings of power.
Basically this would be really sweet if we can put a hop in a car, house, offices, laptops... then your smart phone battery can last 10* as long while in use (ie talking or networking)
sure my phones standby time might decrease 10*, but my talking/email battery life goes up 10*. So a pure cell phone for a occasional talker it would be a net power drain. For the upcoming common use of phones, it is up to a 10* power savings.
would be really nice if my laptop cell card is on, so my cell phone is real low power. The laptop has plenty of spare juice for repeating (and is not transmitting through my head.)
Wayne Electronics likely developed this with some gimmacky military application in mind, but it probably can't work.
The Admin and the Engineer
No i dont want your twisted sad attitude in my neighbourhood. Do you find making up these sorts of bullshit posts make you feel better about your latent homosexuality?
You know though... in rural areas privately owned antennas aren't unusual. They are usually for TV, but increasingly used for point-to-point wireless broadband to a local ISP. If we could add a permanent backbone, either using an internet connection or continuing the mesh theme connecting to other towers, or both that could be enough to cover the whole little town with some solid connections to nearby towns. Seems somewhat doable, but I would worry about permits, regulations and such.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
"TerraNet"
http://slashdot.org/articles/07/09/11/1546258.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraNet_AB
http://www.terranet.se/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=87
Are they reinventing HAM radio?
HAMs (amateur radio operators) invented the mobile ad-hoc network about 50 to 75 years ago [at least].
Hey! Joe Bob runs a fine service and the only time there is any issue is if both circuits are busy.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
If I understand this correctly, we're talking about a peer to peer mobile device network.
-kgj
I liked them, too. I live in Newark, NJ (largest city by pop in NJ). I had to walk outside of my house and down the block to get more than 2 bars. Coverage here for T-Mobile blew; otherwise we would have kept them over Verizon. Despite their locked-down phones and whatnot, their network really is the best (at least for here). I'd probably care more if I wanted my phone to do all that Phone 2.0 shit like video and web and stuff, but I don't particularly care about that.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Australia Post had similiar issues back when the net first reared its ugly head and email sprouted thereby thwarting the need for snail trails to exist. I believe they even tried to have email taxed. Nowadays, australia post is booming by recently branching into car insurance, after having started a retail outlet that takes in bills and fine payments and stationary supplies, magazines, books (also candy). Competition is healthy and the additional services they were forced to provide have been very helpful in promoting competition in the non communications sector. It will eventually happen. Just 'when' is the million dollar question.
Finally.
Good idea. Hopefully implementation will be also very good and suitable also for times when there is no disaster. :)
hany
The Military have had networks like this for sometime. The trust element is not required, but ceratinly the ability to build ad-hoc, mobile, high bandwidth networks have been used for sometime.
I actually meant that the FAA would ruin the idea before you got going with it. Now that I think of it, though, the FCC would have ample opportunity to crap on you as well.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
the potential for a wireless mesh directly connected to the internet is wonderful. but how to make it happen. there are things that would need to be financed, and also it would need to use publicly licensed frequencies, and open technology standards.
do wifi and wimax fit the bill. well they almost do. but there is another layer of route management and peer management that needs to be worked out.
once we can run mesh software (is it (or is it better in userspace?)in the kernel yet?) that automatically maintains our connection it will start. but there will always be the question of the long distance routing. how to get 'onto in current internet'...
as long as we need to pay for long distance routing then we will need to figure out a way of fairly pricing up and down stream traffic, and possibly at different rates for different latency classes etc.. say the guaranteed bw for streaming video should definately be in a different price rate class from the lowest level system message passing, including human text messages. if it can include the cost of the electricity and enough to make co-op's viable, then someone could start one in a city and let it grow organically from there. people could make investments of hardware and access points that would automatically negotiate with peoples portable devices an agreeable rate and open the connection for the necessary transfers.
I don't see this as a practical alternative to cell providers with towers, but it would certainly be a great way to supplement cell networks.
If you limit adhoc network use to discrete traffic (no streams) then you have a very reasonable way to bridge the last mile for SMS, e-mail, etc in network holes like old buildings. This may sound like a small thing, but getting a text message or email in a building where you'd otherwise get no signal at all is a valuable selling point.
Under the same conditions, lots of SMS traffic could avoid cell towers entirely. Consider how often an SMS is going to someone in the same building, complex, or campus. Reducing traffic on towers should be a selling point to cell providers.