http://rabble.ca/columnists/2014/03/mesh-networks-routing-around-online-censorship-and-control
Mesh networks: Routing around online censorship and control
By Wayne MacPhail
| March 26, 2014
Libertarian and Electronic Frontier Foundation creator John Gilmore, is
the author of one of my favourite statements about the web: "The Net
interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
That quote points out two aspects of the web that are important. First,
that it is decentralized and second, that it has the technical capacity
to subvert intrusions it considers counterproductive. But Gilmore said
that back in 1993, long before a web increasingly constrained by
anti-net neutrality plays, cyberspying and corporate ownership of pipes
and content. So, it's refreshing to see another web rise up as an even
more decentralized alternative -- the mesh network.
The web itself, as Gilmore indicates, is a type of mesh network. Each
node in the web passes on data packets. It then uses information in that
packet to nudge it along to its final destination. There it is
reassembled with the other data packets that make up an email, audio or
video file or picture. Should one packet hit a roadblock, it can be
rerouted around the damaged node and get delivered anyway. A robust mesh
has more than one way to get from point A to point B.
Web traffic, of course, depends on the vast Internet for messages to get
through. A computer in the bush of Northern Ontario, with no Internet,
gets no email.
But, smartphones use more than just the web to communicate. They can use
their short-range Bluetooth radios and even create their own ad hoc
Wi-Fi networks with or without a connection to the web or cellular data
service.
That means that, over short distances, two smartphones (and other mobile
devices) could exchange messages and data even when there is no
Internet-based Wi-Fi.
That's exactly what happens when you use the AirDrop feature to transfer
images from one iPhone to another one nearby. Or, when your Bluetooth
heart-rate monitor sends data to the running app on your Android phone.
But, imagine Smartphone A and B. They can talk to one another if they
are close enough. What if Smartphone B also talks to Smartphone C.
Smartphone C isn't close enough to talk to Smartphone A directly. But,
what if Smartphone B could pass a message from Smartphone C to
Smartphone A? Now we have the beginnings of a mesh. Let's add
Smartphones D, E, F, G and so on. Each can communicate directly with the
other phones near them and can passively push along messages for other
phones in the growing web. With enough phones, close enough to even one
neighbour, you could interconnect and share messages with a
neighbourhood or even city of smartphones, without the Internet at all.
That's a mesh network.
That's exactly how the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) tablets used in
developing countries communicate. A mesh network is perfect in villages
that have little, if any Internet connectivity (meshed tablets can also
share a single Internet point over a wide area as well).
The OLPC project is making use of technology from Open Garden. The San
Francisco-based company creates software that makes it easy for laptops,
cellphones and tablets to share Internet connectivity, no matter which
device has the connection. It can even pool data access from multiple
sources -- say from your home Wi-Fi and cellular data.
And, just last week, Open Garden released FireChat, an iOS app that
makes use of the Multipeer Connectivity Framework that Apple introduced
in iOS 7. With FireChat, you can send messages and pictures to other
FireChat users nearby and to others connected via daisy-chaining in the
mesh network. That means, for example, that at a rally or demonstration,
an activist group could create an ad hoc mesh network just to chat with
each other, without an Internet connection. Or, you could chat with
others at a music festival even if there was no Wi-Fi or cellular
signal. Right now, there is no way to create a private group on
FireChat, but I'm sure that's coming.
Google is also keenly interested in mesh networks as a tool for
connecting the "internet of things" like a smartphone and your Nest
smart thermostat, for example. And, they see it as the communications
fabric for wearable devices.
So, you might imagine four mesh layers: the World Wide Web as the
largest, a nearby mesh of communicating smartphones, then a mesh of
household devices, then a personal mesh for devices you wear.
I think we're going to be hearing a lot more about mesh networks, which
is good, because when privacy, censorship and control are in the wind,
we all need new ways to route around them.
Wayne MacPhail has been a print and online journalist for 25 years, and
is a long-time writer for rabble.ca on technology and the Internet.
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