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Is it time to go full decentralized peer-to-peer wireless mesh yet? I know it would be slow, but that's par for the course in most of the US anyway. Routing wo

Is it time to go full decentralized peer-to-peer wireless mesh yet? I know it would be slow, but that's par for the course in most of the US anyway. Routing would be painful, but something like IPFS would encourage peers to cache content in order to ensure faster access to the content they want. It could be done if only the barrier to entry for normal folks was lower. I'm thinking a dedicated piece of hardware in a form-factor like the Google Home where the setup would be as simple as plugging it in to the wall. Servers would still be in datacenters, but the ISPs don't get to play price and speed games with their connections.

acjohnson55 9y ago
Or just fix the policies.
- colemannugent 9y ago
  The problem is not the policies, those could be changed easily if those in charge wanted them changed. The problem is that the Internet is centralized and this allows the US government to control it. Remove the centralization and it no longer can be controlled. This is a design flaw in the Internet and most conventional network designs. There is an inherent level of trust given to network members and this works just fine for a research network between CS departments at Universities, but when my traffic must pass through 12 routers each potentially malicious to reach the edge of Google's network I have to trust each of those 12 routers. Protocols like the ones that underly Bitcoin and IPFS place no trust in nodes. The IPFS whitepaper outlines a very abuse-resistant protocol whose concepts could be used to build another more resilient network layer.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Just so they can change again with the next administration?
orthecreedence 9y ago
There's a step in between Comcast's stranglehold and full mesh nets: municipal broadband/fiber. The more towns get municipal fiber, the more Comcast's grip loosens, until they're forced to compete at a local level with local ISPs run by people you know and trust who support Net Neutrality. If a local ISP doesn't support Net Neutrality, drop their ass and use one of the 20 other ISPs that rent the infrastructure from the city. This is the real shift we need. Net Neutrality regulation will be ping-ponging in various parts of the government for the rest of time...which is a symptom of a much larger problem: the public currently doesn't own the infrastructure, and we need to.
- holtalanm 9y ago
  this. 100% this.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  I am a fan of muni broadband as a competitive alternative to the incumbents. But wouldn’t that enable a demagogue mayor to issue censorship directives via Executive Order?
  - orthecreedence 9y ago
    If said mayor never wants to see another term, I guess it's within the realm of possibility. Also, at that point, the situation is the same as now (with one organization calling all the shots) but at least it's contained to one town.
  - acdha 9y ago
    They could theoretically but there's a big difference because that's in the public sphere and subject to much higher scrutiny. A major making that decision would have to answer about their legal authority to do so; public records laws would apply to anything used in that process; the local council and prosecutors, etc. would have an easier time getting information and acting on it, and the local citizens would be able to vote them out in the next election. That's not to say that this works perfectly everywhere but the framework is setup to be a lot more open than the workings of a private company.
jlgaddis 9y ago
Oh, you want to use IPFS? That's gonna be an extra $25/month. For the first 5 GB.
holtalanm 9y ago
I think that would be too slow for it to be doable. Caching would only work for a subset of content, and anything large that is not cached would take exponentially longer to retrieve.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Someone posted an Ask HN the other day asking "What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?" Mesh networking was mine. I really really wish this would happen.
- whataretensors 9y ago
  I have hopes this will happen with machine-to-machine payment systems. Add fog computing and you might get decent speeds with no centralized backbone.

acjohnson55 9y ago

Or just fix the policies.

colemannugent 9y ago
The problem is not the policies, those could be changed easily if those in charge wanted them changed. The problem is that the Internet is centralized and this allows the US government to control it. Remove the centralization and it no longer can be controlled. This is a design flaw in the Internet and most conventional network designs. There is an inherent level of trust given to network members and this works just fine for a research network between CS departments at Universities, but when my traffic must pass through 12 routers each potentially malicious to reach the edge of Google's network I have to trust each of those 12 routers. Protocols like the ones that underly Bitcoin and IPFS place no trust in nodes. The IPFS whitepaper outlines a very abuse-resistant protocol whose concepts could be used to build another more resilient network layer.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Just so they can change again with the next administration?

orthecreedence 9y ago

There's a step in between Comcast's stranglehold and full mesh nets: municipal broadband/fiber. The more towns get municipal fiber, the more Comcast's grip loosens, until they're forced to compete at a local level with local ISPs run by people you know and trust who support Net Neutrality. If a local ISP doesn't support Net Neutrality, drop their ass and use one of the 20 other ISPs that rent the infrastructure from the city. This is the real shift we need. Net Neutrality regulation will be ping-ponging in various parts of the government for the rest of time...which is a symptom of a much larger problem: the public currently doesn't own the infrastructure, and we need to.

holtalanm 9y ago
this. 100% this.
CodeWriter23 9y ago
I am a fan of muni broadband as a competitive alternative to the incumbents. But wouldn’t that enable a demagogue mayor to issue censorship directives via Executive Order?
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  If said mayor never wants to see another term, I guess it's within the realm of possibility. Also, at that point, the situation is the same as now (with one organization calling all the shots) but at least it's contained to one town.
- acdha 9y ago
  They could theoretically but there's a big difference because that's in the public sphere and subject to much higher scrutiny. A major making that decision would have to answer about their legal authority to do so; public records laws would apply to anything used in that process; the local council and prosecutors, etc. would have an easier time getting information and acting on it, and the local citizens would be able to vote them out in the next election. That's not to say that this works perfectly everywhere but the framework is setup to be a lot more open than the workings of a private company.

jlgaddis 9y ago

Oh, you want to use IPFS? That's gonna be an extra $25/month. For the first 5 GB.

holtalanm 9y ago

I think that would be too slow for it to be doable. Caching would only work for a subset of content, and anything large that is not cached would take exponentially longer to retrieve.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

Someone posted an Ask HN the other day asking "What tech were you convinced would take the world by storm but didn't?" Mesh networking was mine. I really really wish this would happen.

whataretensors 9y ago
I have hopes this will happen with machine-to-machine payment systems. Add fog computing and you might get decent speeds with no centralized backbone.