5 ms·

The Life and Death of SNET, Havana's Alternative Internet

37 points by oedmarap 6y ago

donohoe 6y ago
In reading this I'm reminded of the ad-hoc networks mentioned in one of Cory Doctorow's stories "Eastern Standard Tribe"; cars driving in proximity each other sharing music and allow neighboring cars to stream/copy. I'd love more community based networks like this but I worry about the maliciousness factor. Link to (free) book on author site: https://craphound.com/category/est/ https://craphound.com/category/est/
- rightbyte 6y ago
  How many users are actually malicious though? If you limit the "network" in size. I remember having a school computer where everyone in the class just had a folder on the desktop. It worked fine. I am still not used to entering a password to start my computer. It feels like I don't trust my freinds and family.
  - donohoe 6y ago
    I hope you're right! My local neighborhood has about 70,000 people. Let's say 10% are on a network, how many of that 7,000 people do you need to 'ruin' it for others, or make it an unwelcoming place? I've seen smaller forums and email lists suffer at much smaller scale.
    - hobs 6y ago
      One. If you dont have proper moderation tools, one single malicious user can make a high trust network untenable.
    - rightbyte 6y ago
      An example of a "high trust" community network that works is mail. Anyone can open someones mailbox and read or steal any content. Atleast by houses. The main difference might be that it is easier to hide on a network of 1s and 0s?
      - guenthert 6y ago
        At least in the USA this would be a felony (and the USPS has even its own law enforcement division). So this isn't just based on "high trust".
        rightbyte 6y ago
        Sure, but computer fraud is also a felony. And stealing someones mail from the garden mail post is trivial compared to stealing email. The analogy is not waterproof but it is a good example of something that is quite easy to ruin by people in the neighbourhood but works quite ok anyway.
ginko 6y ago
There was a pretty good talk at 34c3 about the Cuban net. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSIts6rkFI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSIts6rkFI4
ivan_gammel 6y ago
This reminded me the MIPT campus network in the end of 1990s, built and managed by students, which at some point was taken over by the internet provider affiliated with the university administration after a spy scandal. There were old campus dormitories with dirty toilets at the end of the floor and dense network, having up to 3-4 PCs in the room, dozens of wires attached to the ceilings by the aluminium strips made of the beer cans. I've paid $50, half of my income at that time, for an Ethernet port (we owned the local network equipment) and got a static IP address - still remember it.

37 points by oedmarap 6y ago

In reading this I'm reminded of the ad-hoc networks mentioned in one of Cory Doctorow's stories "Eastern Standard Tribe"; cars driving in proximity each other sharing music and allow neighboring cars to stream/copy. I'd love more community based networks like this but I worry about the maliciousness factor. Link to (free) book on author site: https://craphound.com/category/est/ https://craphound.com/category/est/

rightbyte 6y ago
How many users are actually malicious though? If you limit the "network" in size. I remember having a school computer where everyone in the class just had a folder on the desktop. It worked fine. I am still not used to entering a password to start my computer. It feels like I don't trust my freinds and family.
- donohoe 6y ago
  I hope you're right! My local neighborhood has about 70,000 people. Let's say 10% are on a network, how many of that 7,000 people do you need to 'ruin' it for others, or make it an unwelcoming place? I've seen smaller forums and email lists suffer at much smaller scale.
  - hobs 6y ago
    One. If you dont have proper moderation tools, one single malicious user can make a high trust network untenable.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    An example of a "high trust" community network that works is mail. Anyone can open someones mailbox and read or steal any content. Atleast by houses. The main difference might be that it is easier to hide on a network of 1s and 0s?
    - guenthert 6y ago
      At least in the USA this would be a felony (and the USPS has even its own law enforcement division). So this isn't just based on "high trust".
      - rightbyte 6y ago
        Sure, but computer fraud is also a felony. And stealing someones mail from the garden mail post is trivial compared to stealing email. The analogy is not waterproof but it is a good example of something that is quite easy to ruin by people in the neighbourhood but works quite ok anyway.

ginko 6y ago

There was a pretty good talk at 34c3 about the Cuban net. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSIts6rkFI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSIts6rkFI4

ivan_gammel 6y ago

This reminded me the MIPT campus network in the end of 1990s, built and managed by students, which at some point was taken over by the internet provider affiliated with the university administration after a spy scandal. There were old campus dormitories with dirty toilets at the end of the floor and dense network, having up to 3-4 PCs in the room, dozens of wires attached to the ceilings by the aluminium strips made of the beer cans. I've paid $50, half of my income at that time, for an Ethernet port (we owned the local network equipment) and got a static IP address - still remember it.