Bitcoin + Decentralized Internet = ?

[Xenland]

This is a widely different way to think of P2P Internet, I can already see the potential of rewards

[Mushroomized]

It could be based upon an alt coin. You "mine" by downloading and returning junk data generated by the chain from random users. The faster your connection, the stronger, etc the more reward you get. Giving users an incentive to build up network. When you connect to a router, it would require payment in the form of these coins, and redistribute them to other users. Of course you would need to find a way for it to do that, so it can also be secure. IE if the data was "apples" you would want to make sure a user couldnt guess it by sending random data back into the chain.

[Anon136]

Your thinking each node charges a small fee for the volume of data that passes through it and the nodes that supply an internet connection to the network charge a higher fee for data going through it?

yes but if you were using this system in the city that you lived in than you could use the nodes to connect to the land line in your house this would reduce the cost considerably (early on of course eventually the hope is this system wouldnt connect to the internet but rather become/replace the internet). I believe this is being done in a centralized manner already with "http://www.5gmesh.com/about-5g-mesh.html" this acts sort of like a proof of concept demonstrating that it can be affordable and there are good reasons to expect that an open source decentralized version of the same thing relying on bitcoin micro transactions would be cheaper than a centrally planned closed source version of the same thing.

[Anon136]

Could a basic free access system with charges for extra bandwidth be built on that?

you as an individual could do anything you liked with your node but bear in mind that making things free carries its own cost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

I was thinking everyone on it would need an account pre-charged with bitcoin to debit and the free access could only be done by having an account which is kind of inconvenient

I imagine that you might load credit on a pgp key you had agreed on for each node. no need for centralization.

a splash page when you connect that informs you what your connected to, offers connection options and just lets you continue to your requested page would be good but I don't see how it could be done.

yea you might need to write custom firmware O.o wayyy beyond my understanding. Im more into economics than computer science.

Also, would it need something like its own credits to be able to use different networks anywhere you go without multiple accounts or could the network and software handle that kind of thing its self?

if the government left the technology alone then there would certainly be pressure towards standardization. For starters any entrepreneurs would probably own multiple nodes each. Then they would stand to benefit from uniting in networks sort of like the machinima network that would allow for customers to pay at one address and get shard credit on many many nodes. Now if the government started trying to attack weaknesses than this would be one of them so you would likely end up paying for credit that you never used in parts of the world that you dont go to often due to minimum transaction limits on bitcoin.

[Mushroomized]

Thanks. The free part does add a lot of complication, if accounts are needed then its not a big step to requiring an application to access it. That would be a lot of nodes having no choice but to contribute bandwidth to the network and maybe making some money out of it too, not a lot for most but there would be good spots to farm especially in lower density populations. Maybe tor integration or something like it would also come naturally to it, can't see how that would work with bitcoin payments though.

If you create an alt coin like in my idea, people who cant contribute to the network could buy credit from an exchange (using bitcoin too)

[Mushroomized]

Sorry, I missed that. Was thinking something like its own coin too, if an app has to be installed to use it can use whatever protocols it wants. It could also contribute to network security but that could be tricky for battery operated devices, isn't encryption processing of some sort built into wlan devices?

If I remember correctly, WEP keys are. But WEP can be easily broken. Maybe using some adaptation of WPA2 could be used, hah.