7 ms·

Meshkit

112 points by jdowner 9y ago

jtanderson 9y ago
I think this is a really cool idea. Is there a way for one to limit the amount of data that could go through your device so that your data caps don't suffer from sending too much of somebody else's data? Edit: I see the "User control" feature, but it's not too specific about what exactly publishing and subscribing means for you vs strangers on the same mesh.
stupidcar 9y ago
Nice idea, but despite the "Open" in the name of the company, this is all based on a proprietary protocol. The internet has done pretty well so far by being based on open protocols and standards. I don't think it's a good idea to change that.
louismerlin 9y ago
If you like the concept, check out http://ipfs.io http://ipfs.io, great team & concept
- rtkwe 9y ago
  Not the same thing at all. IPFS doesn't do any mesh networking it handles file distribution, storage and retrieval but doesn't do any of it's own networking so it relies on some existing connectivity from what I can see.
  - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    I am pretty sure this also uses some existing connectivity tech such as Apple's multipeer connectivity https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectivity https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectiv... At least IPFS guys open sourced everything for anyone to use. The "Open"garden people had the guts to name themselves "open" despite it being opposite of open.
    - rtkwe 9y ago
      That's not an existing link though until two devices using it come close enough to communicate and the connection is established. If that were to count any device with an ethernet port and an IP stack would be linked because "all" you need to do is run a cable. Of course both devices have to have compatible protocols to communicate but that doesn't mean they have a link established until the connection is made. IPFS is really neat and I'm glad it's open sourced but it's not a mesh networking protocol. I'd love to see a combination of IPFS and a robust mesh networking scheme. It'd be a pretty great way to bring internet like functionality where there's no infrastructure without having to setup anything other than having people bring their devices.
aw3c2 9y ago
Does not seem like a free and open standard so my tab was closed in seconds.
__andK 9y ago
Very interesting - we've been looking at something very similar (though less extensive) for bridging between BLE end devices and our cloud. It'd be interesting to see what it'd take to get ble devices integrated and on the mesh (battery requirements/mem requirements). Right now we're just forwarding beacon packets to our database servers - but this seems to provide a back/forth that'd be very useful (command/control & ota updates) Difficult to say without more detailed docs
solnyshok 9y ago
is there any (sdr) usb radio that could be connected to android phone via usb-on-the-go to reach devices within 1+ mile on unlicensed bands? to be used by this or other open source mesh implementation, like http://servalproject.org/ http://servalproject.org/
mpolichette 9y ago
I like this idea. I keep hoping that a solution with peer to peer networking can help us overcome the problems we have with ISPs owning and controlling all of our access to the internet.
mlaretallack 9y ago
Sounds a bit like http://www.servalproject.org http://www.servalproject.org
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  Or Briar: https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/
  - manigandham 9y ago
    Or Telehash: http://telehash.org/ http://telehash.org/
    - hobofan 9y ago
      Why do none of these projects manage to publish a usable embeddable library (+ docs)? That could be so much more impactful than all the minimal demo-chat apps built on top of the mesh network tech...
      - kawfey 9y ago
        Development in a vacuum, everyone wants to cash in, disagreements on protocols or languages or politics or people. I’m a big ham radio nut, and although the premise of the hobby is the advancement of radio technology, everyone’s old, has their own way of doing things, and has reinvented the wheel many times over. Logging programs, DX clusters, remote radio interfaces, APRS programs and apps, satellite trackers, you name it, there’s a dozen versions of everything. I imagine this is common in technical hobbies.
jewel 9y ago
Something like this would work great in an urban environment if enough apps used it. For non-urban environments the wifi range becomes a limiting factor. I'm hoping that LTE Direct becomes a thing, since it has a much higher range. Kind of a separate idea, but if the hardware ever became cheap enough, it'd be great if the charger that shipped with these "LTE Direct" phones also included an LTE chip so that it could participate in the mesh. It would be great for disasters and also for overloaded network That way you'd have a decent chance in a suburb to be able to have a no-data-plan-necessary mesh network for devices of preteens or other minor uses where paying for a data plan is too expensive. For example, a data connection for your entertainment system in your car. In order to connect such a mesh to the Internet without having to worry about being the origin of someone else's traffic, the base stations would connect over wifi to their home access point. All traffic would be relayed over the Internet to the user's own base station, which would then send it to the destination. That way the mesh doesn't have to have a lot of traffic but someone can connect to the mesh without becoming the point of origin for potentially malicious traffic. It also would reduce the load on the mesh since traffic would only travel one or two hops.
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
This is very unfortunate piece of technology. And I'm not saying this ironically. This is the type of technology that will benefit the most number of people if open sourced, but despite what these guys call themselves ("Open"garden), it's not open at all. I'm guessing it's because they've already raised near $13MM https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden and they can't afford to just let go of the tech (I'm guessing they're probably hoping at this point to get acquired by some large company for their tech, but not even sure if they have a patent-worthy tech since I'm guessing they use iOS and Android API underneath) If they didn't raise this much money they could have made the decision to just open it up if they really think this will change the world. As much as I hate ICOs, I would like to see this type of tech being open sourced and the creators trying to make money with open protocols rather than getting stuck in the old mindset of trying to make money by petty licensing in the age of open source. Also, note that there's a better alternative if you're trying to implement near field P2P AND you're OK with using someone else's proprietary tech https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview I looked into this field a while ago and found that there's nothing out there that's completely open. For a genre of technology that claims to liberate communication, it's super ironic how it's the opposite.
- tetraca 9y ago
  Man, spearheading a FOSS project that could do this would be a dream, but I struggle having enough time to tinker as it is.
- westbywest 9y ago
  Indeed, my understanding is that neither iOS or Android provide reasonable access to adhoc or 802.11s modes on their wifi chipset. I gather MeshKit is deploying its mesh topology through tunnels, somewhat abstracted from whichever phy.
- marknadal 9y ago
  We have tackled a protocol to solve ad-hoc mesh network data transmission in P2P environments. It is MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 Open Source licensed: https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun I explain how the P2P logic works in this tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s We also have end-to-end encryption now working: https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth What we're missing, is we need adapters for Bluetooth, etc. Andre Staltz (of CyclesJS fame) has already added React Native bindings ( https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage ), which I'm hoping some of those tools (like Phonegap, Nativescript) have bridges for Bluetooth?
westbywest 9y ago
Yikes, their case study showing a map with pinpoints for DNC protestors in Philadelphia is an alarming illustration of the capacity for these peer-to-peer comms apps to be abused. I wonder if the FireChat participants at the time were aware of the location tracking. https://www.opengarden.com/case-studies.html https://www.opengarden.com/case-studies.html
generous 9y ago
Couldn't people just put malicious / illegal content on your phone with this?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
shortoncash 9y ago
Does this allow iOS and Android to talk to each other over the mesh without reaching into the cloud? It says iOS and Android, but it doesn't seem to say -between- iOS and Android.
dhat 9y ago
Something similar is accomplished with http://thaliproject.org/ http://thaliproject.org/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xoail 9y ago
I am more excited about this project https://github.com/AntonTheDev/ExtendaBLE https://github.com/AntonTheDev/ExtendaBLE Disclaimer: Created by one of my co-workers.
beobab 9y ago
I want to see this working. I want to try it out myself. Sadly, I'm not part of a multi-million customer company, so I don't know if I am the demographic they are looking for.
inopinatus 9y ago
I contacted Open Garden, interested to develop a product based on their purported architecture that would be a useful in-the-field extension of my established SaaS product. The website indicates they see themselves as a solution vendor for specific verticals. My application isn’t in the use cases on their list. I did not hear back. So much for MeshKit.

112 points by jdowner 9y ago

I think this is a really cool idea. Is there a way for one to limit the amount of data that could go through your device so that your data caps don't suffer from sending too much of somebody else's data? Edit: I see the "User control" feature, but it's not too specific about what exactly publishing and subscribing means for you vs strangers on the same mesh.

stupidcar 9y ago

Nice idea, but despite the "Open" in the name of the company, this is all based on a proprietary protocol. The internet has done pretty well so far by being based on open protocols and standards. I don't think it's a good idea to change that.

louismerlin 9y ago

If you like the concept, check out http://ipfs.io http://ipfs.io, great team & concept

rtkwe 9y ago
Not the same thing at all. IPFS doesn't do any mesh networking it handles file distribution, storage and retrieval but doesn't do any of it's own networking so it relies on some existing connectivity from what I can see.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  I am pretty sure this also uses some existing connectivity tech such as Apple's multipeer connectivity https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectivity https://developer.apple.com/documentation/multipeerconnectiv... At least IPFS guys open sourced everything for anyone to use. The "Open"garden people had the guts to name themselves "open" despite it being opposite of open.
  - rtkwe 9y ago
    That's not an existing link though until two devices using it come close enough to communicate and the connection is established. If that were to count any device with an ethernet port and an IP stack would be linked because "all" you need to do is run a cable. Of course both devices have to have compatible protocols to communicate but that doesn't mean they have a link established until the connection is made. IPFS is really neat and I'm glad it's open sourced but it's not a mesh networking protocol. I'd love to see a combination of IPFS and a robust mesh networking scheme. It'd be a pretty great way to bring internet like functionality where there's no infrastructure without having to setup anything other than having people bring their devices.

aw3c2 9y ago

Does not seem like a free and open standard so my tab was closed in seconds.

__andK 9y ago

Very interesting - we've been looking at something very similar (though less extensive) for bridging between BLE end devices and our cloud. It'd be interesting to see what it'd take to get ble devices integrated and on the mesh (battery requirements/mem requirements). Right now we're just forwarding beacon packets to our database servers - but this seems to provide a back/forth that'd be very useful (command/control & ota updates) Difficult to say without more detailed docs

solnyshok 9y ago

is there any (sdr) usb radio that could be connected to android phone via usb-on-the-go to reach devices within 1+ mile on unlicensed bands? to be used by this or other open source mesh implementation, like http://servalproject.org/ http://servalproject.org/

mpolichette 9y ago

I like this idea. I keep hoping that a solution with peer to peer networking can help us overcome the problems we have with ISPs owning and controlling all of our access to the internet.

mlaretallack 9y ago

Sounds a bit like http://www.servalproject.org http://www.servalproject.org

blacksmith_tb 9y ago
Or Briar: https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/
- manigandham 9y ago
  Or Telehash: http://telehash.org/ http://telehash.org/
  - hobofan 9y ago
    Why do none of these projects manage to publish a usable embeddable library (+ docs)? That could be so much more impactful than all the minimal demo-chat apps built on top of the mesh network tech...
    - kawfey 9y ago
      Development in a vacuum, everyone wants to cash in, disagreements on protocols or languages or politics or people. I’m a big ham radio nut, and although the premise of the hobby is the advancement of radio technology, everyone’s old, has their own way of doing things, and has reinvented the wheel many times over. Logging programs, DX clusters, remote radio interfaces, APRS programs and apps, satellite trackers, you name it, there’s a dozen versions of everything. I imagine this is common in technical hobbies.

jewel 9y ago

Something like this would work great in an urban environment if enough apps used it. For non-urban environments the wifi range becomes a limiting factor. I'm hoping that LTE Direct becomes a thing, since it has a much higher range. Kind of a separate idea, but if the hardware ever became cheap enough, it'd be great if the charger that shipped with these "LTE Direct" phones also included an LTE chip so that it could participate in the mesh. It would be great for disasters and also for overloaded network That way you'd have a decent chance in a suburb to be able to have a no-data-plan-necessary mesh network for devices of preteens or other minor uses where paying for a data plan is too expensive. For example, a data connection for your entertainment system in your car. In order to connect such a mesh to the Internet without having to worry about being the origin of someone else's traffic, the base stations would connect over wifi to their home access point. All traffic would be relayed over the Internet to the user's own base station, which would then send it to the destination. That way the mesh doesn't have to have a lot of traffic but someone can connect to the mesh without becoming the point of origin for potentially malicious traffic. It also would reduce the load on the mesh since traffic would only travel one or two hops.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

This is very unfortunate piece of technology. And I'm not saying this ironically. This is the type of technology that will benefit the most number of people if open sourced, but despite what these guys call themselves ("Open"garden), it's not open at all. I'm guessing it's because they've already raised near $13MM https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/open-garden and they can't afford to just let go of the tech (I'm guessing they're probably hoping at this point to get acquired by some large company for their tech, but not even sure if they have a patent-worthy tech since I'm guessing they use iOS and Android API underneath) If they didn't raise this much money they could have made the decision to just open it up if they really think this will change the world. As much as I hate ICOs, I would like to see this type of tech being open sourced and the creators trying to make money with open protocols rather than getting stuck in the old mindset of trying to make money by petty licensing in the age of open source. Also, note that there's a better alternative if you're trying to implement near field P2P AND you're OK with using someone else's proprietary tech https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview I looked into this field a while ago and found that there's nothing out there that's completely open. For a genre of technology that claims to liberate communication, it's super ironic how it's the opposite.

tetraca 9y ago
Man, spearheading a FOSS project that could do this would be a dream, but I struggle having enough time to tinker as it is.
westbywest 9y ago
Indeed, my understanding is that neither iOS or Android provide reasonable access to adhoc or 802.11s modes on their wifi chipset. I gather MeshKit is deploying its mesh topology through tunnels, somewhat abstracted from whichever phy.
marknadal 9y ago
We have tackled a protocol to solve ad-hoc mesh network data transmission in P2P environments. It is MIT/ZLIB/Apache2 Open Source licensed: https://github.com/amark/gun https://github.com/amark/gun I explain how the P2P logic works in this tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCPRY-9hkc&t=3s We also have end-to-end encryption now working: https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth https://github.com/amark/gun/wiki/auth What we're missing, is we need adapters for Bluetooth, etc. Andre Staltz (of CyclesJS fame) has already added React Native bindings ( https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage https://github.com/staltz/gun-asyncstorage ), which I'm hoping some of those tools (like Phonegap, Nativescript) have bridges for Bluetooth?

westbywest 9y ago

Yikes, their case study showing a map with pinpoints for DNC protestors in Philadelphia is an alarming illustration of the capacity for these peer-to-peer comms apps to be abused. I wonder if the FireChat participants at the time were aware of the location tracking. https://www.opengarden.com/case-studies.html https://www.opengarden.com/case-studies.html

generous 9y ago

Couldn't people just put malicious / illegal content on your phone with this?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

shortoncash 9y ago

Does this allow iOS and Android to talk to each other over the mesh without reaching into the cloud? It says iOS and Android, but it doesn't seem to say -between- iOS and Android.

dhat 9y ago

Something similar is accomplished with http://thaliproject.org/ http://thaliproject.org/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

xoail 9y ago

I am more excited about this project https://github.com/AntonTheDev/ExtendaBLE https://github.com/AntonTheDev/ExtendaBLE Disclaimer: Created by one of my co-workers.

beobab 9y ago

I want to see this working. I want to try it out myself. Sadly, I'm not part of a multi-million customer company, so I don't know if I am the demographic they are looking for.

inopinatus 9y ago

I contacted Open Garden, interested to develop a product based on their purported architecture that would be a useful in-the-field extension of my established SaaS product. The website indicates they see themselves as a solution vendor for specific verticals. My application isn’t in the use cases on their list. I did not hear back. So much for MeshKit.