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Project Byzantium: Zero To Ad-Hoc Mesh Network In 60 Seconds (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the also-good-in-case-of-vampire-attacks dept.

Project Byzantium calls itself Ad-hoc wireless mesh networking for the zombie apocalypse. It's also potentially useful for less-thrilling emergencies, such as floods, earthquakes, and political uprisings (or getting everyone at the office their /. fix when the network goes down). The latest version debuted at the HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in July, 2012. You can download your very own copy of Byzantium any time you like. Hopefully you will then burn a dozen or so CDs (it's compact enough that it doesn't need a DVD) for friends and neighbors, so that if you suddenly see zombies approaching and your regular ISP has already been overrun and isn't working, you can set up a wireless mesh network and coordinate your anti-zombie efforts. And you won't even need to use the command line. (slides and audio of their presentation)

11 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Why not... by kenh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not simply flip your WiFi port from 'infrastructure' to 'ad-hoc'?

    --
    Ken
    1. Re:Why not... by Mathieu+Lu · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why not simply flip your WiFi port from 'infrastructure' to 'ad-hoc'?

      In regular ad-hoc, you can see the people around you, but not reach their neighbours (there is no routing by default). Byzantium uses babeld, which is a routing layer over an "ad hoc" mode. The mesh network automatically recalculates routes, depending on their signal and link saturation. If you're into networking, it's really trivial to setup and lots of fun (especially with ipv6, although ipv4 works too of course).

  2. Re:Wireless Mesh Network? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    9dbi antenna and external wifi adapter FTW (the last I tested worked well upto a mile in the boonies)

  3. Re:Wireless Mesh Network? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 4, Informative

    Put the antenna higher up or use a directional one. Absorption by the environment is usually even worse than inverse square losses.

    With clear line of sight and no Fresnel zone obstruction, a quarter mile should be completely possible. Look up the distance record, it's remarkable.

  4. forget food, get on the internet by alen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so if there is a natural disaster i'm not supposed to worry about finding food, medical help and anything else to survive but immediately start surfing the internet?

    and even if i did do this, only the naive morons will start advertising that they have food and are willing to share.

    1. Re:forget food, get on the internet by localman57 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      so if there is a natural disaster i'm not supposed to worry about finding food, medical help and anything else to survive but immediately start surfing the internet?

      No, if there's a natural disaster, you are supposed to worry about finding those things. Part of the theory behind these things is that a mesh network could help the people trying to provide them tell the people trying to find them where they are. Think about New Orleans, or even 9/11. The cell phone towers were not effective. But a mesh network might have been.

  5. Re:Wireless Mesh Network? by localman57 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Doesn't a directional antenna kind of defeat the idea of a mesh network? Or are we off topic now?

  6. Re:Wireless Mesh Network? by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With directional antennas and amplifiers, I've set up a stable 802.11b connection at 17 miles. I remember reading that Cisco had one going between mountaintops at 50 miles. All of this was 5 years ago, so things are probably more impressive today.

    --


    "Lame" - Galaxar
  7. Re:Wireless Mesh Network? by Q-Hack! · · Score: 4, Funny

    9dbi antenna and external wifi adapter FTW (the last I tested worked well upto a mile in the boonies)

    You are assuming that my neighbors are in any way tech savvy? The guy closest to me was taken by surprise when the TV system went digital.

    --
    Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
  8. Router firmware? by Ichijo · · Score: 3

    Is there a distribution of Tomato/DD-WRT/OpenWRT with this preinstalled?

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
  9. Science Fiction... by BionicPimp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Vernor Vinge was my networking teacher at SDSU... He mentioned an idea in passing similar to this (around 1997ish), except that in his vision, the network would be explosively formed. Imagine that you could get these nodes down to the size of a quarter. maybe it had a solar cell + battery combo. You could fire off a missle or a shell over a field of battle, a low yield explosive would disperse these nodes over some area, and would automatically create a mesh network. I still think that the idea has merit, maybe somehow install Byzantium into a tiny embedded controllers, etc...