Bitcoin Forum

It's becoming painfully obvious to me that the efforts to control and regulate Bitcoin are reaching an increasingly fevered pitch. Whether you agree or not with that kind of control isn't the point of this post, but what could happen as the awareness created by these attempts percolate through the internet and countries around the world.

The topic of "what if they do 'x' to stop Bitcoin" has been debated quite a bit, and I'm not trying to repeat that here. I'm just thinking we need to implement some robust communications that don't depend on commercial internet service providers. Fortunately, there are other very smart people who have been doing the same thing for different reasons. And as the whole three-letter-agency debacle has shown, commercial networks are increasingly compliant towards controlling government entities.

Enter Hyperboria. What is it? From their main page: Link - http://hyperboria.net/ (http://hyperboria.net/)


I hope a few of you are nodding at this - the keywords, security, scalability and decentralization resonated strongly with me.
Best part is, you don't need to have dedicated hardware right away - you can participate in the network and be routed over the commercial internet with end-to-end encryption from the start.

The big difference between this and Tor?

It doesn't rely on ISPs if you have set up a local mesh with your friends. Naturally, this growth pattern will be restricted to smaller groups before being able to 'link up' with other meshes over long distances, but we had better start now -- because the future I see is ISPs being asked to monitor/restrict Bitcoin traffic, restrict Tor nodes, and a whole litany of other nasty things that haven't yet come to pass.

We need insurance, and we need it before they crack down on the commercial internet.

Please consider running a node, if you believe in the key values of Bitcoin you should also believe in making the communication network it uses just as free and available.

Thanks for reading.

Good advice.  Start making preps now.  You are one of the voices in the wilderness.

I use Tor, but Hyperboria is new to me.  I will check it out.

I also advise people to not link their Bitcoin use to social networking sites.  It becomes easier to be identified.

Mesh Networking:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/how-wireless-mesh-networks-work.htm

Anyone can join by peering with someone already connected.
The network is censorship resistant.
Packets are encrypted end-to-end using your unique cjdns ipv6 address.
Nodes use the common WiFi standards known as 802.11a, b and g to communicate wirelessly with users, and, more importantly, with each other.

bitcoincard.org is working on a mesh network for Bitcoin.

Yes, I'm aware of that product and I think it is fantastic, but as their page states:


So unless they're making their own mesh, I'm not sure how that would solve anything. Is that what you meant, they're working on another network besides the one employed by their cards?

Edit: On further inspection the gateways are possibly self-sufficient, but I'm not entirely sure if that isolates them completely - as bitcoin mining pools and verification nodes are mostly on commercial networks and/or Tor.

OpenGarden, too!

Thanks, that looks rather nice as well but it lacks built-in encryption. Still, can be useful for an underlying communications layer - if anyone has other suggestions, please post so we can have an arsenal of options in one thread.

OpenGarden link - http://opengarden.com/ android/windows

I was kinda speculating recently that stopping mesh nets may have been the reason that Wi-Max got talked down in the technology press. The weak point of mesh nets is getting them all linked to each other, and having a tech like Wi-Max that allows domestic transceivers to get a usable ~50 mile range would be a real game changer for mesh-nets, at least in densely populated countries. Too bad I have a Wi-Max laptop already  ;D

We have to do something, even if it means a hybrid approach where the commercial internet is used for bridging smaller meshnets together. There are thousands of flights to other countries every day, and even if we resort to "Data Couriers" making drops of the blockchain to other countries on flash drives, it is still worth it.

Every day that passes without any kind of contingency plan is a day wasted. We really collectively need to get off our asses and get something together, instead of focusing on the next-and-greatest mining tech, or convincing a shop owner to use bitcoin.

Bitcoin will get seriously 'effed with, and soon -- we really need to be in front of this.

It's not so much about showing how resistant Bitcoin is to the government, but how resistant it is to outside threats.  Bitcoin is more reliable than banks.

I intend to buy some dedicated hardware to act as a 24/7/365 meshnet server, I wouldn't want to frustrate any network by providing an intermittent node at this stage. Does anyone know how valuable/feasible it would be to install Hyperboria on a router? Could kill two birds with the one stone, that way.

I'm still researching this, but on this page there's a bit at the bottom on what hardware will support CJDNS:

https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/Getting_started#Install_it (https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/Getting_started#Install_it)

The main references for this effort besides the Hyperboria page are:

https://projectmeshnet.org/ (https://projectmeshnet.org/) -- Project Meshnet home page, links to a wiki and guides

Link to some "Meshlocals" that are already in operation that you could peer to:

https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/List_of_Mesh_Locals
 (https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/List_of_Mesh_Locals)
Ideally we'd create one that is intended to be just for Bitcoin and secure communications with low bandwidth needs.

There is a list of public peers as well, but they're probably already overloaded with other connections.

https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/Public_peers (https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/Public_peers)

*cough* https://www.bitmit.net/en/item/8408-meshdynamics-md4350-aaix-wifi-mesh-access-point-400-500m-range

That is a non-trivial bit of hardware, and the price reflects that :)

I'm thinking as a first effort to get consumer-grade hardware into the mix, then start adding 'heavy lifters' like that one to help it scale.

Yes

First effort, download the Hyperboria software and have it available to share and propagate.  

2nd step, install, test and get experience using standard WiFi propocols with Ubuntu.

Extra credit, use more powerful transmitter.

I concur, this is extremely important. Ideally, we should have modular configurable mobile devices with software radios with WiFi, mesh networking, SMS, VOIP, and connectivity to cell networks. Similar devices could be plugged in like Freedomboxes or connected to small, low cost solar panels to extend the network. External USB drives can be plugged in to add storage. Wireless routers like the Linksys WRT and WAP series running OpenWRT may be re-purposed as well.

Users can have personal clouds distributed across the network with redundant encrypted storage for personal files and an unencrypted, anonymously accessible commons of shared files. The meshnet would be similar to a large RAID drive operating over a network, with enough redundancy to accommodate missing nodes due to mobility, usage patterns, and hardware failures.

Several of us have also discussed the concept of a cryptocurrency recently at meetups recently to promote growth and resource allocation of the network, a Netcoin or Meshcoin, maybe generated by doing cryptographic work encrypting the communications, earned when data is uploaded from a node, spent when data is downloaded to a node. Nodes may encourage traffic to earn coin by providing local storage, internet access, cpu power for computing, or hosting content.

Reading about the commercialisation of drone aircraft, I'm thinking that meshnets could be easily their most positive application. Software to create a smooth handover between a mesh-drone that needs it's fuel/charge replacing could be pretty vital. Or better yet, something with the radio range to fly above the typical cloud cover, collect an uninterrupted 16 hours of solar power per day, then see how much literal "uptime" you can bag  ;D. How much of this could be 3D printed? How much once we can print graphene superconductors? Stealth shapes to avoid detection? Meta-materials to avoid detection?

Meshnet drone wars = prelude to a conscious skynet  ;D

Solar plus a small lifting envelope would help as well. Have to consider the design challenges though, the energy density needed to run a decent transmitter would be one of the harder parts. We really need graphene and its related technologies sooner rather than later.

All this pie-eyed wondering is reminding me of another factor: the battle for good engineers to help with the development of these ideas. Will it be enough to just wait to capitalise on and re-use commercially developed technology, maladapted for meshnets, or would it be more expedient to try to incentivise the engineers who work for commercial companies to down tools and come and work for Bitcoins? There's already alot of programmers doing great work in the cryptocoin arena, but I wonder how many of these can pay their bills this way? Could we kickstart a Bitcoin driven technocratic symbiosis, starting with a global meshnet project? If this is in any way feasible, then no wonder our political establishment are beginning to act like cornered dogs.

If I were to write a novel about where the post-Snowden/NSA/Wikileaks planet goes from here, I'd sure as hell chuck that into the jar of potential background narratives.

P2P transport is on my radar as well. It will be a critical component for a P2P based alternative economy.

I think the 'killer app' for self driving vehicles currently getting little attention is door to door delivery, even room to room with motorcycle sized electric vehicles which can reconfigure to enter buildings. Eliminating the driver eliminates the need for large vehicles in most cases. P2P transport of single packages eliminates the need for heavy duty packaging to protect contents during handling and stacking. Convoys with 24/7 power generation vehicles can extend the range for long distance transport.

P2P VTOL aerial drone mesh transport networks as Carlton discussed are also a possibility. Drones are the only way I can think of to safely handle automated Bitcoin/Cash exchange. A drone can drop a cash packet from a safe height in exchange for Bitcoin. A deposit in BTC could also insure the safety of the drone during the exchange. A drone could drop a container for cash pick-up, which the customer loads with cash and tosses into the air for the drone to catch to purchase BTC for cash.

"tosses into the air for the drone to catch"?

Yes, open source drones have already been programmed with this kind of agility at universities. Videos and a lot of good info on drones and drone nets are available at the John Robb site, http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2013/01/index.html .

I expect that the Dread Pirate Roberts would do himself a big favour to support the availability of these sorts of tech-solutions, then that "we won the war on drugs" rhetoric wouldn't sound quite so over-confident.

Oops, caught on now that you were suggesting drones to carry meshnet nodes, not the 'matternet' app. I've considered solar powered lighter-than-air for wireless networking platforms. Use hydrogen instead of helium, replenish lost hydrogen by electrolysis of atmospheric water, electric motors and props for station keeping.

Topical: http://skydrone.aero/

Yeah, I was wondering about that. Is this possible? To create a blimp that uses solar top stay in the air indefinitely?

Yes, main limit if any would be materials degradation, mostly from UV. Solar cells last at least 10 years, use UV resistant outer skin, maybe aluminum foil. Lithium or metal hydride batteries for night time power will need replacing every few years. Water can be condensed from air for hydrogen replenishment. A small volume of water produces a lot of H2 gas.

It is a heady thought isn't it, combining the need for ubiquitous communications with existing and nearly-in-production technologies to make a physical comms/delivery network.

Seriously, if DPR put a small fraction of his funds into developing such a thing, it would be nearly unstoppable. The real challenge is the design of the physicals, do you go with quality, or just easily replaceable parts? If I can print out most of a drone, do I really care about anything else than it will last for 'n' number of flight hours?

Even better if the flexible solar materials come to production, then you're talking about integrating the cells right into the lifting envelope, using thin films. The only real bulk would come from what your payload is, and the support infrastructure including energy storage.

"Cracking" hydrogen from available water is an excellent idea, and if you could get the efficiency up there - maybe even use that for the motors themselves, retaining power just for periodical hydrogen extraction and transmitter power.

Hell, what about parasitic induction using a conductor and existing RF/Microwave signals? Is it enough to run some minor circuitry while keeping the solar generated power just for 'cracking' hydrogen?

I really wish I had a research space to work on this stuff, along with a 3D printer and a good materials scientist and a electrical/physical engineer.

An alternative to batteries would be a fuel cell to convert hydrogen plus atmospheric oxygen to electricity and water, since there is plenty of hydrogen on board any way, and there may be a tank and compressor or lithium hydride for extra H2 for buoyancy control. It's all well developed technology, simpler with batteries, a little more complex but optimized with fuel cells for lower weight and eliminating battery replacement. Biggest challenge I see is getting the service ceiling to 70,000 feet to clear the tallest thunderstorms.

It would be a fun project. I had originally considered it when getting my ham radio licenses for a robotic airship to cruise the world with video for hams to connect to and pilot remotely. It would be a lot easier to do now than it was 20 years ago.

Well, we aren't crazy because Google is trying to do the same thing:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/googles-project-loon-flying-internet-coming-to-homes-in-california/

What I want is an open-sourced version that doesn't rely on Google services, obviously. Anybody want to 'catch' one and tear it apart? (Hah, Joking... but if you work at google, consider opening up the project.)

This problem deserves solving.

Interesting, as it grants Google the same infrastructural power that we wish for our collective selves. And so Google, and whatever other players in the same space, would have unprecedented powers of controlling information flow, and all in a highly reconfigurable, fault/sabotage tolerant manner. Would such an organisation need to answer to any ground based legislators, both legally or physically? The incentive to put in the resources to keep the network running (....skynet? oh crap) would be high, as without it, information control is out of your hands (we'd perhaps all agree that information is the most desirable of commodities, it seems to preclude the obtaining of any other commodity)

High altitude airships. I have done some work with these for the military.

http://www.dailywireless.org/2006/05/11/big-brother-blimp/

Yes, one approach would be a meshed swarm of redundant, inexpensive units covering an area. Another would be fewer, more expensive units large enough for a phased array of WiFi transmitters like a Vivato panel, http://www.vivato.com/ .


One possibility is to incorporate reflective dish concentrators into gimballed spherical lifting cells which can track the sun to focus light onto a high efficiency photovoltaic or mechanical system. Catalytic hydrogen production may be an option as well.


Too bad spectrum is licensed. Open competition among transmitters with high signal strength might have led to enough wireless power in the air to actually capture. In reality, though, the wireless space would have probably subdivided into smaller and smaller low powered  cells and evolved into an open mesh network in an unregulated environment.

Hi Elwar, were you on the Seastead forum? Your nym looks familiar. Like the blimp. Looks like some kind of phased array antenna or sensor array. the evolution driven antenna design is very interesting.

For those in the SF Bay Area, there is a meeting Thursday, 8/22, 6-9 pm on a closely related topic, personal clouds. It would be ideal to have personal clouds implemented across an anonymous, encrypted, redundant mesh network connecting mobile devices, personal computers, and bulk storage devices.

http://personalclouds-es2.eventbrite.com/?rank=1

Info on personal clouds is at http://personal-clouds.org/wiki/Main_Page .

Yes, I was on the Seastead forum :)

I worked on mesh radio networks as a contractor for the military for about 7 years. In rough terrains UAVs and blimps are essential. Though my work was all in simulating the network as opposed to any actual hardware.

I meant in the sense of capturing available RF for low-power consumption, not transmitting on an already crowded band of frequencies.

"Why are all these balloon things in the path of our microwave link?" Haha.

The practicality of such a thing is probably not worth it, or we'd see a lot of things using that method to convert RF to microvolts to get some free power. I'm not an electrical engineer, but passive capture is possible depending on the signal strength and specific frequency you're aiming to "harvest".

Thanks for posting everyone, great reading material.

I was being somewhat facetious, like there being so many transmitters crowding the airwaves trying to beat each other with more power that it could be captured from the air and used for energy.

Haha, I see - the "noise floor" would be so high it would be like humidity in the air!

Hopefully not :)

I'd like to mention Nightweb, a decentralized way to share text and images - which is much in the spirit of Bitcoin. It runs over I2P, and before you go running in horror because you think it will be too "slow", it actually runs decently.

Check it out here - https://nightweb.net (https://nightweb.net)

They have a standalone desktop client, which is just an executable .jar and an android app. It is beta software, so there will be changes and such, but so far it seems rather interesting.

There's a reddit for it as well here - http://www.reddit.com/r/Nightweb (http://www.reddit.com/r/Nightweb)

Don't forget the HAWP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_wind_power).

A year or so ago some people here tried to implement this: http://www.funkfeuer.at and immediately ran into police and government threats, coercion and harassment. Such as suspected police agents purposely uploading illegal content so they could claim it was a rogue network and demand it be shutdown. It was also discovered to be trivial to jam/block, so abandoned. The whole point is it remains operating during a regime communications blackout, if they can simply locate and jam or destroy then it's fail

I'm just interested in this for bitcoin transactions, encrypted VoIP and hosting archived coursera and MIT free courses, SICP courses, free ebooks ect. Maybe I'll have to get that mesh dynamics router and put it on the roof of my building

My primary aim was to stimulate discussion on a bitcoin-centric type of network. Trying to be everything to everbody is a recipe for failure, especially if you have diverse bandwidth needs like streaming video AND supporting bitcoin.

I figure the traffic the average bitcoin client produces, full nodes, miners and the like aren't too onerous - and could be serviced by some kind of distributed mesh. The first person that crams a linux-on-a-USB-Stick into a 3D Printed all-weather case with some solar and antenna leads is going to be frickin famous. We need these, and we need them before we get messed with.

Lots of ideas in this thread. What would be a good first step - something realistic, and within a reach? I lack in-depth understanding of Bitcoin networking and of the mesh networks being developed, so I can't really cast a meaningful vote untill we get specific proposals here.

What kind of pricepoint are you looking at? This is what I have in mind, though with rasperry-pi size board which is linux capable, like Cubieboard or Beagleboard. I'm looking at sub-$100 in quantity, units are the size of a pack of cigarettes. 3D print and Shapeways for development, injection mold in quantity at Protomold for about $3000 for molds plus a few dollars per case. Also plan on device being modularly configurable to plug in wall plug, use solar, or batteries as wearable device. Includes WiFi and software radio for other frequencies.

One conundrum about mesh networks is that they would not be needed except in an extreme scenario of totalitarian network control, and in that case participating in one and thus subverting the network control would carry a harsh penalty.  To make matters worse, anything transmitting on an electromagnetic spectrum would be a beacon saying 'come arrest me' or 'drone target here.'

Probably the most effective means of overcoming the problems associated with a totalitarian form of government would be to overthrow it, but that would take time and a functional monetary solution would have difficulty remaining viable with years of down-time.

The best bet has always seemed to me to piggyback on a functional official network to send transaction messages covertly.  Read 'steganography.'  This would, however, require competent people operating in relatively safe locations.  It would also necessitate a tight protocol and limited activity since the overhead and risk of performing a transaction would be significant.  This is the primary reason I lobby strongly for an 'off-chain' solution whereby the 'gold standard' or 'reserve' was carried on compact chain upon which ad-hoc off-chain solutions were built as needed and adapted (or abandoned) as the threats evolve.

I've always kinda hoped that Bitcoin would take on the role of the 'reserve', but as it develops into a solution with aspirations to natively support all economic activity it picks up baggage which would be hard to handle in a situation where it was living under significant network attack, and hard to easily unload if the need arose.

We're ssssso close to that description already, we're still at a stage where heavy/total surveillance is being sold to us as as an unavoidable, good thing. Once the cultural/behavioural changes in the general population are more or less affirmed, hello fascism.


This could well turn out to be the case. Mining reward distribution would have to go to all public keys equally, or ceased altogether. A single individual could take on a kind of neo-Satoshi role of transporting the blockchain information to places where they could safely and covertly access the internet to process the latest transactions they can gather (disguised as some other communication).

I kinda disagree. Mesh networks have massive benefits, the biggest of which is not having to pay $50+ a month for internet at home, and another $30+ a month for a data plan on your mobile. They also should have less downtime, due to redundancy, and may be faster, since packets can be routed over more channels. The problem, or conundrum, with mesh is that they have a chicken-egg problem of what should come first. I would love to run a mesh, but my neighbors don't have it, so I would just be by myself. My neighbors would love to run a mesh, but I don't have it, so they would basically be running it by themselves. Thus, there is plenty of incentives to get a mesh set up, but no one wants to go first. There is also a possibly bigger issue of "I'm paying for my internet, why should I give it away for free?" which may be more difficult to overcome, though possible, if you agree to share resources among paying customers (My husband and I use different cell providers - t-mobile and at&t - which we individually pay for, but we mesh our phones together so that both of us always have a good signal, even when one provider has a crappy one).

The only solution to this conundrum I've found is to piggy-back mesh on top of something else useful, like the bitcoincard. It's primarily a means of storing bitcoins and making payments where web may not be available, and mesh comes second, but thanks to that type of device, mesh may become prevalent without anyone even noticing or planning for it. Hopefully there may be other such devices, where mesh capability is secondary, and the primary use is more of a necessity. I guess lack of cheap, easy to deploy mesh devices may be another issue. I'd love to see something small and solar powered/charged (or induction charged that you can attach to a powerline carrying pole) that you could buy for $25. I'd fill my neighborhood with those first chance I get.

Simple, break it down into smaller parts, managed by a collaborative database hosted somewhere in the darknet (I2P/Tor) for now.

This could be applied to any other country, but I'll use the USA for an example.

Continent Subdivisions:

East Coast - Further subdivided into contiguous zones based on population, so the effort to link-up would concentrate on higher density areas first. So, major cities like Boston, NYC, Baltimore, DC, Atlanta, and so on...

Same thing for the Midwest, Mountain and West Coast areas.

The main effort would be to build meshes with people who are in the urban zones using user-commodity hardware that isn't cost prohibitive, and linking up those nodes with well-placed Outdoor Solar Nodes (OSN's). For redundancy, you'd probably have to have at least three different long-haul-strings of OSN's connecting each mesh, since you'd be putting these things on natural and artificial structures, and there is a possibility of singular node failure.

I'd also like to have at least 2 - 3 nodes at any given time able to overlap on the long-haul side, so you don't suddenly get a break in one of your long haul routes because that one OSN you put up between Boston and NYC decided to crap out.

Then you'd need an ongoing program where you'd have mobile techs, sponsored by the largest pools, to keep their area of nodes functioning - either dedicated to a long-haul segment or a given area of urban mesh. That is really the only way to get it going, compensating people for some of the cost of keeping it running. It could be debated that this activity would be limited to fixing breaks, instead of an ongoing fee - but I would like to have someone maintaining active monitoring of the routes so you can tell when reconvergence events occur, indicating a possible 'break'.

I suppose getting that started would be a tough argument at first, because no ISP that I know of in North America is currently messing with Bitcoin traffic, and most people would probably switch over to Tor or I2P -- however, I think it is still important to aspire towards independent networking sooner rather than later.

If we don't have something set up, then we'll have to resort to "Data Couriers" of some type to make regular 'drops' of the blockchain between places and/or countries - which wouldn't be optimal, but better than nothing.

I'll keep thinking about this problem, and I encourage any suggestions or ideas regarding this.

Edit: Was also considering "gamifying" the whole thing and making reward bounties available for the entire project (across smaller deliverables), but I'm not sure how to prevent something like that being gamed by bad actors.

Ambient Backscatter for transmission in urban areas perhaps?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX9cbxLSOkE

The possibilities are exciting...

Very cool. Research paper is at http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~gshyam/Papers/amb.pdf .

A fractal antenna, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_antenna , may give it a wide band and increase the power harvest.

I'm thinking along those lines as well. Is there any website where you can "pledge" your commitment to setup a node given that x others in your area is willing to do the same? Perhaps that could help getting it started. I love the idea of mesh net so much I may actually invest and setup a node even being completely alone in my area, but I'd imagine very few is holding this attitude.

I'm silently praying for quantum entanglement internet (http://phys.org/news/2013-04-quantum-internet-solid-state-network.html) to arrive. A 1 minute (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh8uZUzuRhk) explanation of quantum entanglement for those not familiar. It would change everything  :)

Meshnet is not going to viable alternative for now because no suitable radio equipment is available. WiFi is not good enough because of small distance and possibility of jamming.

I have set up small meshnet using 4 routers running DD-WRT but they are not going to work over distance larger than small block. Dedicated amplifiers and antennas will help but not enough to reliably reach closest neighboring village. WiMAX would be more useful but I never had possibility to play around with them.

The meshnet concept must be divided in two parts. One part is development of ready to use software (firmware) for routing, interoperability and encryption protocols. Other part is development of new radio-electronic devices. Frequency hopping and non-standart (other than 2.4 and 5GHz) frequencies used when capable devices agree on them will somewhat help against jamming and similar attacks.

WiFi can be supplemented with line-of-sight, visible-light communication using inexpensive LEDs.

Ronja can be used to create a 10 Mbit/s full duplex Ethernet point-to-point link.

The range of the basic configuration is 1.4 km (0.87 mi). And it would not currently be subject to FCC regulations, imo.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Ronja_beam_Prostejov.jpg/220px-Ronja_beam_Prostejov.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA

On yeah, that's right, just use lasers for long distance. No radio interference and no jamming.

Sure.  Brilliant!  What could possible interfere with line-of-sight?

No radio interference, true. But fog, rain, birds, dust storms, snow, spiders...? Also, jamming a beam of light is more trivial than jamming a radio signal.

I was wondering who will mention Ronja. It will need cooperation of at least 2 persons to set it up. The radio waves are omnidirectional so it is easier to connect to other mesh nodes. But highly directional light beams are harder to jam by electronic means.Yo never had birds crapping on outdoor WiFi antennas in such large quantity that they stop working?They both can be damaged using phisical means. Hit/dislodge WiFi directional antenna or Ronja beam = signal lost. But WiFi can be additionally jammed using purely radio means. Light beam is not that easy unless somebody can shine a laser into transceiver.

Strategic redundancy would probably be good move for light based transceiving, make the network more node dense than would be minimally necessary. And so once again, cheap, expendable devices would be the only viable way to maintain uptime in the face of hostility.

Depends on how much power you put through it  ;D  *sizzle!*

roflmao :P

Anybody figure out how to make this work on Windows yet?

Why bother.  Really.  Especially after the Win-8/TPM goings-on.  Making something secure for Windows is kind of like putting a V8 engine in a riding mower.  Some people have nothing better to do so it does happen from time to time I guess.  But it makes a lot more sense if one is going to build a significant structure to have it rest on a reliable foundation.

:D  then it sizzles your receiver as well!

In the Ethernet protocol, data is sent in packets, with automatic error checking of each packet.  If a bird flys between two optical transponders, any packets that do not pass the cyclic redundancy check are sent again.  And of course, transponders are placed high enough to avoid problems with humans and cars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_frame

But heavy fog is definitely a problem for optical data transmission systems.

While a lot of long-haul lasers sounds exceptionally cool, that's true, it would still be susceptible to environmental factors. Unless someone decides to start trenching fiber on their own from the back of a pickup truck, we'll need some other method - perhaps a mix of passive directional 'cantenna' type relays and powered ones.

I'm still absorbing everything presented in this thread, thanks for contributing ideas.

Likewise, although there's one obvious conclusion to be drawn without too much contemplation: there are so many different data transmission vectors that can be used, so there's strength in depth there. I wonder whether there's a good strategy to combining the different techniques with each other to help create redundant coverage?

A privately operated network would be a very useful thing to have actually.

What would likely be most robust and practical would actually be physical lines.  Coax when possible, though POTS could be used as well but it would radiate signal better and thus be more easy to detect.  Fiber would be ideal when it can be arranged.  Deployment would be within reach of most people and the raw material is available for appropriation.  Stock up on ends and crimping tools ya'all.

Routing is a complex subject and any robust routing protocols will likely detract significantly from the bandwidth capacity of the medium.  This is particularly true since it would be an ad-hoc network with continuous damage as pathways are discovered and destroyed.  Anyone hoping to satisfy their need for streaming porn should probably start making plans (e.g., personal libraries) right now since there is little hope of a privately maintained and surreptitious LAN or WAN being very suitable for that purpose.

Long-range Wi-Fi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

Outdoor point-to-point arrangements, through use of directional antennas, can be extended with many kilometers between stations.

... availability of proven free software like OpenWrt, DD-WRT, Tomato that works even on old routers (WRT54G for instance) and makes modes like WDS, OLSR, etc., available to anyone. Including revenue sharing models for hotspots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquiti

    
Biquad Antenna Construction
http://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/

One big issue with the latest suggestions is cost. Enormous costs. A 500 yard WiFi repeater I'm selling is about $2,000

Are we not the future wealthy elite?  ;D

Another problem is the constant maintenance. I've seen people setting up repeater systems before, and it took a lonnnng time to figure it through. It's a good thing we're imagining all of this as a Bitcoin fallback network, we can gamify it by getting the nodes to detect and record downtime, and offer BTC time based reward-on-re-up incentives to our new engineering warriors  :D Maybe even atmospheric sensors to detect how dedicated our repair militant was to getting the thing online again  :D

I love the gamification aspect, but its hard to prevent gaming of the system. Lets say I have a bounty for fixing a long-haul node, but all I've really done is disconnect the power leads from the solar circuit to the board. I reconnect it, get my money and go on to disable another node for profit.

I'm not sure how to get around that kind of behavior.

Guns?

Surveillance. "Sensors" would be a less loaded expression.

The only way I can see around the gaming problem for deployment and maintenance is a steady stream of BTC coming from those interested in growing the network, so you have a given area you'll gladly deploy and fix - and you getting those funds depends on your uptime or something tied to doing a good job.

It would be harder to 'fake' a node than it would be to fake its broken and needs fixing for a bounty. Would have to include some kind of neighbor check either using underlying TCP/IP routing protocols or packet transit stats for verification. (A neighbor has your MAC as the source, etc..)

That would enable automatic polling too, so you couldn't just put up a node, turn it off and keep getting BTC. It would have to stay alive and be available.

Some interesting ideas and to add one more; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication

Many people have electricity which means wires which means AC or even DC in type of setups. A community can interconnect using existing electricity wires with the required hardware or if possible opensource kind of hardware. Place in each community X amount of special gateways which use maybe a different means to exchange data to another gateway at distance etc. Remember also that a wireless signal can be jammed although if we get to that stage one might just switch frequencies which are not.

Powerline ethernet adapters work well across one phase in a building, has problems hopping from one phase to the other in 110/220 wiring or across transformers. The coils in a transformer act like RF chokes, blocking high frequencies. It might work in an apartment or condo building with a wireless hop to a rooftop gateway.

 Something that would help all of these efforts would be a protocol more designed for intermittent than TCP/IP?

 What if something much more lightweight could be used on mobile phones via bluetooth, searching for nodes, passing packets whenever available and allowing the user to have some manual input on what priority to give to relayed info. This could then sync over other networks as and when they become available.
Bitcoin is too heavyweight for this AFAIK. It could be used however to share more basic information. You could walk around in China with your phone spamming one and all with Tor relay node IPs for example.

 I think we have limits on the disruption potential of Bluetooth? I think to relise the potential you would need to work at a lower level than simple application... anyone care to comment?

At the lower levels, one of the more interesting things I've run across is Bernstein's curvecp:  http://curvecp.org/ (http://curvecp.org/)

At a higher level, the Bitcoin protocol is actually pretty good due to certain of the inherent characteristics of the early (including current) implementation.  Or more accurately, it's 'being' for lack of a better description.  In fact that was one of the major draws of it to me.

1)  It is not real-time and has a high latency by most network standards.  That is to say, the block frequency is 10 minutes though of course this is variable and random which are two very useful features of a system which is hard to analyze and attack...though in fairness not terribly relevant to this discussion.  Latency kills when doing high-speed network analysis or shaping.

2)  It is compact.  An entire message can fit into one frame.  This is key because it is fairly difficult to perform stream and correlation analysis when there is no stream.  Of course there will be a handshake, but by the time a payload is inspected, it is likely already gone.  The only defense is to perform DPI and filtering in real-time rather than to cut off the first payload packet when it is discovered  to contain objectionable content, but doing this on all syn payload data would be expensive.  Another very useful feature of a tiny and discrete message is that it can more readily hide in various cracks and crevices.  I think there may even be enough frame space to effectively obscure packets in such a way that it would give filters grief but I am not sure about this.

I don't claim to be a guru at this stuff, but do have some experiences with it and again these natural defenses attracted me to the solution when I first heard about it.  Basically from early on I figure that if Bitcoin never needs to protect itself against a robust and dedicated network level attack, there would not be a very compelling need for the the solution at all.  Which would be great actually.

To be more clear, I probably should mention that I'm thinking more about how/if individuals can perform individual transactions in hostile jurisdictions.  Hopefully it would be possible for heavier support infrastructure (e.g., miners) to operate in more 'free' environments meaning either jurisdictionally friendly locales or private networks or both.