[BitPool] Mesh networks to bypass ISPs

[Elwar]

The Internet is going from a fairly decentralized network to more centralized and more susceptible to control.

With Bitcoin we can come up with a great way to use mesh networks to create an alternative network and have nodes funded with bitcoins.

Something like a wireless node you can set it up and with the possible incentive of being paid in bitcoins when people access it.

We need to work on a cheap wireless relay node, preferably something that can be solar powered that could become like mining where people will want to put up as many of these things as possible to get a return on their investment. It could be used with maidsafe, each node could be a bitcoin node, etc.

I've set up a pool here for those interested in helping to work toward this here:

http://www.bitpools.com/?Solar%20Wireless%20Relay

As time goes on I believe this will be necessary to keep Bitcoin going unhampered and will allow us to keep a step ahead of the control of the Internet.

[1715307813]

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[1715307813]

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[franky1]

google wifi drones

[Elwar]

google wifi drones

The company that spies on us for the government.

[franky1]

google wifi drones

The company that spies on us for the government.

i meant the concept of flying wifi routers buzzing around the skies of a town. (not specifically requesting them to be google owned)

[Elwar]

google wifi drones

The company that spies on us for the government.

i meant the concept of flying wifi routers buzzing around the skies of a town. (not specifically requesting them to be google owned)

Ahh, that would actually work. I've done some simulations on those. That and blimps which would probably be easier to keep in the sky.

[RomertL]

This is necessary for Bitcoin AND Internet itself. With both decentralized internet and payments the people are close to immune to totalitarian governments. How does a government control its people? 3 things: through control of money, information and guns.  Thanks to internet, it's much harder to spread propaganda and to hide the truth. Thanks to Bitcoin they are loosing the control over money. Thanks to Silkroad clones that depends on Bitcoin and Tor, (or 3d printers) its much harder to prevent people from buying guns (or print them). But all of this would be nothing without universal access to internet.

The Internet in its present form is far too vulnerable, who know what a cornered US government would or could do to save its existence. Probably a lot of damage. A decentralized network (mesh) is next to impossible to destroy, and a decentralized currency like is next to impossible to destroy as long as it can rely on such a network.

[albus]

Mesh networks are nice in dense cities, for people back in the country its much harder to put in place, you need some heavy hardware.
Also very impractical overlong distances, you need to go from node to node... Then you get back to your ISP for long distance. Mesh is an add on to Internet, not a replacement

[franky1]

google wifi drones

The company that spies on us for the government.

i meant the concept of flying wifi routers buzzing around the skies of a town. (not specifically requesting them to be google owned)

Ahh, that would actually work. I've done some simulations on those. That and blimps which would probably be easier to keep in the sky.

router + solar panel attached to a balloon is cheaper/easier to manage yes. especially where there is not excess electric draw from the solar batteries, purely to fuel the drone. as balloons wont need motors. but then again, why need balloons. when you can just mount them to walls of buildings... without a balloon.

few moments pondering the feasibility

so now im thinking cheap, reliable service is wifi routers attached to walls. closer to street level, which then send signals to a large relay station for the larger distances between different towns/cities.

final idea. satalite dishes..

sorry to offer different options as if im changing my preference. but feasibility wise its easier to get people to connect existing technology to a wireless router then it is to have new specific device that everyone has to buy. and drones/balloons normally have to be at a certain height (eg drones have to be above building height to avoid crashing, which may cause signal strength issues due to distance from the ground.)

[Elwar]

so now im thinking cheap, reliable service is wifi routers attached to walls. closer to street level, which then send signals to a large relay station for the larger distances between different towns/cities.

Ya, I was thinking something like routers on top of electric and telephone poles. That would be useful for the long distance requirements.

For long distances if there was a way to get bitcoins for the traffic you would probably make more money if you allow access over long distances.

[Velkro]

clever idea indeed

[franky1]

thinking big picture of a doomsday scenario where people need mesh nodes instead of normal internet (the day the internet dies fantasy story/ every ISP blocked bitcoin port numbers or bitcoin code transmission)

if it only cost 1satoshi per repeater to transmit the TX. and the range of a repeater was only 100 metres. it would cost 0.00043000 for a tx US east coast to US west coast. and a hell of alot more to go from lets say capetown (southafrica) to eastern russia across land 0.002 relay fee

passing through 43k-200k nodes

people on the main distribution lines (line of sight between popular destinations) could earn alot, from a cheap repeater router that was reprogrammed for mesh networks instead of internet.

i can then see people then making their own "supernode" repeaters that transmit larger distances and offer cheaper rates by bypassing a thousand personal nodes.. (jumping country to country using radio waves as oppose to 100metre personal nodes) for <half the price.

more random thoughts

but then we run into the issues of transmitting the blockchain.. i imagined mesh, like tor. going through alot of nodes before the destination (slow) where as the internet is more direct path (utilising DNS)

so the supernodes as described above would be the DNS/main data distribution hubs. effectively re-inventing the internet, but just for bitcoin data

more random thoughts

so, who's ready to program and get this running? anyone?

[spin]

I'm a member of a not for profit private wireless network that operates in the 172.16.0.0/12 address space and is made up of individually run nodes that are connected.    It's a bit like the OP envisaged, but not really targeted at a doomsday scenario.  This is also not a true dynamic mesh network.  More fixed point-to-point, but the topology is mesh like.

I have set up a bitcoin node on this network and 1 or two guys connect to me.  The problem with using this space is that the standard bitcoin code severely limits discovery on this address space as it is considered private ips.  My node happens to be also internet connected so acts like a gateway on this network.

Some issues I recall:
- node doesn't advertise a private ip
- node doesn't allow multiple connections in the same /16 subnet
- node doesn't get it's own ip from other nodes.  So my node only advertises it's public internet facing address onto the private network.

I would love to be able to make auto discovery possible on this network but it is not.  At the moment I have to manually advertise the existence of my node and manually addnode other nodes I become aware of (and get them to addnode me) in my bitcoin.conf file.

If the network code of bitcoind implemented some changes things would be easier:
- allow it so send the ip as reported by the node it is connected to.  (as per https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/3088)
- allow the node to advertise a private ip
- the ability to allow multiple connections on some "trusted" networks
- multicast/broadcast discovery (see https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/3802)

I suspect some of these changes will be helpful in other use cases also.  E.g. assisting nodes on the same private lan finding each other and thus to reduce combined bandwidth usage.

[OnkelPaul]

google wifi drones

The company that spies on us for the government.

In english, you can verb any noun.

Onkel Paul

[Lauda]

google wifi drones

The problem with these remains the outdated technology.
Batteries.

[franky1]

google wifi drones

The problem with these remains the outdated technology.
Batteries.

you imagine


i imagine this

[Lauda]

Add two more 0's on that 2nd picture and then it will work nicely. 

[franky1]

Add two more 0's on that 2nd picture and then it will work nicely. 

flexi solar cells, a cheap router stripped down to its bare board, and a remote controlled drone/model helicopter. does not have much weight, thus not require much electric to propel it, thus battery requirements are low.

things have moved on since the 1990's remote controlled helicopters

[Elwar]

so, who's ready to program and get this running? anyone?

The great thing about BitPools is that if enough people pledge their money toward it (keeping their coins in their own cold storage) the solution will come to us.

Then it's just a matter of voting with your bitcoins on the best solution.

[xDan]

I've often seen mesh network type projects, why exactly haven't any of them taken off?

I'd love to have some kind of medium to long range wireless device that connects to some kind of global fixed-infrastructure free network, bouncing from node to node across  the country... Perhaps routing through the internet over an encrypted tunnel when absolutely necessary to cross massive distances (e.g. rural areas, sea crossing).

Yes, bouncing via solar powered nodes. That would be so freaking cool. Nodes you can just buy a load of, and leave wherever you want to help the network.

But, what are the key problems?

The hardware technology? Licensing of radio spectrum, lack of long enough range communication (wifi doesn't cut it)? Inevitable slowness of it, inefficient routing algorithms? Why can't I just buy/build some little widget and jack into the world wide freedom network? What gives?!

I've yet to see the killer system; the Bittorrent or Bitcoin of this space.

[Elwar]

I've yet to see the killer system; the Bittorrent or Bitcoin of this space.

Maybe safecoin is the answer to the bandwidth issue:
The resources in question are storage, CPU, online time and bandwidth.

I'm not sure how they deal with paying for bandwidth and online time but it might be a good way to reward each node.

http://www.safecoin.io/

[Elwar]

I've often seen mesh network type projects, why exactly haven't any of them taken off?

I also usually see that there is no financial incentive in most of these projects. Once the few people working for free move on to other things, nobody replaces them, waiting for those people to come back.

[cbeast]

Greed would destroy it. People would jam their competitors bandwidth to get more money.

[franky1]

Greed would destroy it. People would jam their competitors bandwidth to get more money.

i fully agreed

instead of a transaction going from capetown to eastern russia, where 200,000 people get a satoshi each. 5 super nodes (one per main country on the route) would share out the 0.002btc between them (0.0004btc each).

[cbeast]

Greed would destroy it. People would jam their competitors bandwidth to get more money.

i fully agreed

instead of a transaction going from capetown to eastern russia, where 200,000 people get a satoshi each. 5 super nodes (one per main country on the route) would share out the 0.002btc between them (0.0004btc each).

Meshnets would probably work fine when the endpoints are in densely populated areas. Monopolies would still own rural networks and take a big chunk of the revenue.

[Elwar]

Greed would destroy it. People would jam their competitors bandwidth to get more money.

When you have to pay for the bandwidth you use, and your competitors get paid for providing that bandwidth...how would people be able to jam their competitors bandwidth?

[cbeast]

Greed would destroy it. People would jam their competitors bandwidth to get more money.

When you have to pay for the bandwidth you use, and your competitors get paid for providing that bandwidth...how would people be able to jam their competitors bandwidth?

I use the term "jam" figuratively. Someone will find a way to throw a monkey wrench into the system. Look at ASICs and mining pools.

[raganius]

This is a very interesting (and also very important) subject.

I have become curious about mesh networks since I first learned about p2p (freenet, tor, etc...), and then I have realised that we depend too much on the Internet.

The Internet is very fragile. Too fragile to be trusted in the long run. There's no way we can continue depending on it indefinitely.

A really independent mesh network is necessary. Independent from the Internet. It's resilience will give us enough safety.

I'd like to share here some interesting links that I am sure most of you are already acquainted, but it seems to be important as reference:

• https://projectmeshnet.org
• https://openwrt.org
• https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MultipeerConnectivity/Reference/MultipeerConnectivityFramework/Introduction/Introduction.html
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=372904
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6477

I am so sorry that I have no technical knowledge to be of much help though, but I'll always be watching this thread. I hope good ideas and projects will come up.

(I hope that we will never really need a mesh network: that in the end the world's sinister totalitarian trend is reverted, and freedom prevails after all... but, just in case...)

[DannyElfman]

google wifi drones

The company that spies on us for the government.

i meant the concept of flying wifi routers buzzing around the skies of a town. (not specifically requesting them to be google owned)

These nodes would need some kind of incentive to operate or else they would not operate. If you were to say that it would give the owner access to the rest of the internet/network, then what if a node operator used much more bandwidth for himself then he relayed for others? Other nodes would not want to relay data packets to him because he is taking much more then his fair share.

[franky1]

These nodes would need some kind of incentive to operate or else they would not operate. If you were to say that it would give the owner access to the rest of the internet/network, then what if a node operator used much more bandwidth for himself then he relayed for others? Other nodes would not want to relay data packets to him because he is taking much more then his fair share.

one of my other posts mentioned a 1sat fee per node or large fee for distance relaying, as an example

[Elwar]

A really independent mesh network is necessary. Independent from the Internet. It's resilience will give us enough safety.

Early on it could certainly tunnel through the current Internet.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

if it only cost 1satoshi per repeater to transmit the TX. and the range of a repeater was only 100 metres. it would cost 0.00043000 for a tx US east coast to US west coast. and a hell of alot more to go from lets say capetown (southafrica) to eastern russia across land 0.002 relay fee

Wouldn't this add a lot of TX to the blockchain? Like huge amounts.

[franky1]

if it only cost 1satoshi per repeater to transmit the TX. and the range of a repeater was only 100 metres. it would cost 0.00043000 for a tx US east coast to US west coast. and a hell of alot more to go from lets say capetown (southafrica) to eastern russia across land 0.002 relay fee

Wouldn't this add a lot of TX to the blockchain? Like huge amounts.

i wrote a big long explanation, then thought it was too long and waffly.. but in short

depends how the mesh network was set up.. and for what purpose.

but so far the idea is just at the dream stage, it seems that it needs thrashing out and theorized.. hense why im throwing lots of idea's/theories into the mix to help whomever wants to go ahead with it. to see it from different angles.

currently the internet works for bitcoin. but in a scenario that the internet wasnt around, and a different method of peer-to-peer relaying was required.. lets say a totally different protocol. and was named meshcoin then the blockchain would look and act very different.

if used just to transmit from countries where internet was blocked, into countries where it wasnt blocked. then the data that is relayed could simply be an encrypted offchain balance movement API command.. (much like webwallet services(coinbase) credit users internally)

thus the fee would be distributed internally. without spamming the blockchain

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

if it only cost 1satoshi per repeater to transmit the TX. and the range of a repeater was only 100 metres. it would cost 0.00043000 for a tx US east coast to US west coast. and a hell of alot more to go from lets say capetown (southafrica) to eastern russia across land 0.002 relay fee

Wouldn't this add a lot of TX to the blockchain? Like huge amounts.

i wrote a big long explanation, then thought it was too long and waffly.. but in short

depends how the mesh network was set up.. and for what purpose.

but so far the idea is just at the dream stage, it seems that it needs thrashing out and theorized.. hense why im throwing lots of idea's/theories into the mix to help whomever wants to go ahead with it. to see it from different angles.

currently the internet works for bitcoin. but in a scenario that the internet wasnt around, and a different method of peer-to-peer relaying was required.. lets say a totally different protocol. and was named meshcoin then the blockchain would look and act very different.

if used just to transmit from countries where internet was blocked, into countries where it wasnt blocked. then the data that is relayed could simply be an encrypted offchain balance movement API command.. (much like webwallet services(coinbase) credit users internally)

thus the fee would be distributed internally. without spamming the blockchain

Who would control that "internal distribution" that would be responsible for making sure everyone pays and is paid properly?

I like the idea of have the fees be distributed internally as each transmission could easily have 100 or more outputs if each node were to only transmit data 300 meters.

Another issue would be that of large websites that have a lot of traffic. Wouldn't surrounding nodes of where the node for major websites like CNN.com get overloaded with traffic?

[theblacksquid]

I've yet to see the killer system; the Bittorrent or Bitcoin of this space.

Maybe safecoin is the answer to the bandwidth issue:
The resources in question are storage, CPU, online time and bandwidth.

I'm not sure how they deal with paying for bandwidth and online time but it might be a good way to reward each node.

http://www.safecoin.io/

MaidSafe and safecoin only addresses the storage and movement of data between machines, but doesnt address the hardware needed to actually relay the data around like radio, wifi or cable connections. It would still go through centralized ISP's.

But, we could take MaidSafe's idea on a totally different scale. Imagine each mobile device around converted into mini-nodes passing around packets of data, buildings fitted with more heavy-duty nodes to facilitate bigger areas (city blocks, towns, cities), blimps and cubesats then disseminating that info accross oceans and continents.

How can we get people to use this? Simple, they get free internet, everywhere! But it only after it reaches a certain critical mass

[franky1]

if it only cost 1satoshi per repeater to transmit the TX. and the range of a repeater was only 100 metres. it would cost 0.00043000 for a tx US east coast to US west coast. and a hell of alot more to go from lets say capetown (southafrica) to eastern russia across land 0.002 relay fee

Wouldn't this add a lot of TX to the blockchain? Like huge amounts.

i wrote a big long explanation, then thought it was too long and waffly.. but in short

depends how the mesh network was set up.. and for what purpose.

but so far the idea is just at the dream stage, it seems that it needs thrashing out and theorized.. hense why im throwing lots of idea's/theories into the mix to help whomever wants to go ahead with it. to see it from different angles.

currently the internet works for bitcoin. but in a scenario that the internet wasnt around, and a different method of peer-to-peer relaying was required.. lets say a totally different protocol. and was named meshcoin then the blockchain would look and act very different.

if used just to transmit from countries where internet was blocked, into countries where it wasnt blocked. then the data that is relayed could simply be an encrypted offchain balance movement API command.. (much like webwallet services(coinbase) credit users internally)

thus the fee would be distributed internally. without spamming the blockchain

(1)Who would control that "internal distribution" that would be responsible for making sure everyone pays and is paid properly?

(2)I like the idea of have the fees be distributed internally as each transmission could easily have 100 or more outputs if each node were to only transmit data 300 meters.

(3)Another issue would be that of large websites that have a lot of traffic. Wouldn't surrounding nodes of where the node for major websites like CNN.com get overloaded with traffic?

(1) code would ultimately deal with it. for instance on btc-e.com they do offchain transactions between users by offering btc-e codes which are generated by code, users email them to each other and the receiver deposits the code to get credited. coinbase does it differently by allowing a user to say in laymens terms "pay ShakyhandsBTCer : 0.5btc". and the coinbase code just adjusts the senders balance 0.5 less and adjusts your balance 0.5 more

(2) well bitcoins are not sent 300 yards, they have to go through miners and sit on a blockchain. so thats means transactions need to be sent out of country to where there is internet. or if it was a new protocol (like meshcoin idea i brainfarted) then the principles of a blockchain as we see it today would be different.

(3) many websites have large userbase. but using the africa analogy. not every user would independently be sending data to the webwallet. instead the supernode that have a internet connection would (and they would be getting rich because of being the last node of the whole trip). if their computer couldnt handle such volume if suddenly 1million africans somehow all wanted to send data his direction all at the same time. then while offline another node with internet would relay it, getting the reward for doing so.

maybe part of programming the mesh network would be to ensure there were suitable supernodes that can handle large volume, and have limits of transmission per minute to allow a fair distribution for all nodes at the north african border who have internet. so that not only one node gets their part of the fee. eg to distribute the greed that one node isnt the only node transmitting to the webwallet

but these are all theories of how the back bone of a meshnetwork could turn out to be like in the future.. no one has really gone into too much detail about how value/balance would be confirmed in a non mining/short distance per-to-per network. or how transmission bloat/thousands of relays going through a single node at a country border  would be dealt with

[Elwar]

I could see something like a "subscription" base for nodes connecting to nodes.

Each node pays for X amount of bandwidth up front to another node. That node does not know if it is a relay or a user connecting. Something like .01 BTC for 10Gb of data transfer. Once that amount is used up, the node or user has to pay again. This has been shown to be a viable way of paying for Internet service with bitcoins.

You could set the amount you want and your nodes could seek out the best rate among nodes. Users could also seek out the best nodes to connect to for their Internet access.

If a node is getting paid a lot for traffic it then has to pay other nodes for the traffic needs from them.

There could be different levels of access for short term access like in an airport where you only need 10Mb or so, or higher subscriptions for major hubs.

The market would push the rates down as anyone can drop in a node and set their price.

[franky1]

my past couple posts were going off to a tangent of a country wide ISP avoidance.. so lets simplify it.
yes im continuing on about payment side of internet access. but because its local im not worrying about payment protocols as its easier to manage bitcoins with not many non-direct internet hops locally  

imagine in a town 5 people had the internet(blue circles) and were willing to open their wifi internet connection to random people and relays(red circles) to make a whole town WIFI accessible


infrustructure
each WIFI connection, instead of a 'computer name' it was a bitcoin address and a price per hour
EG
connct to:
1Bitci0n4ddr355BlaBlaBla&price=$1

other users phone/ipad/device computer would have their device name set as their bitcoin address, so that the wifi connection would know who was connected and paid to use the connection. and blocking connections that did not pay. simply by comparing received transactions vs connected pc's

Scenario 1 meshnet owns all the relays
those with internet worked out on average their internet bill was ~$30 a month and 1 meshnet connection was made to him, so he charged meshnet $50 a month, same goes for the other 4 people
because meshnet owns all relays they have a combined cost of $150 to all 5 internet connections,

Scenario 2 random people own the relays
those with internet worked out on average their internet bill was ~$30 a month and 1 relay connection was made to him, costing that relay $50 a month. the relay had an average of 3 other relays connected to them so the first relay could divide the $50(and profit) charging $27 for each of the 3 connecting relays($81 combined). those connected relays would have 3 other relays so dividing and profiting, theyd charge $15 each ($45 combined).
so by the time it got to the centre of town (based on image above) the 'cost' to run the relay would be under $10 a month. but due to connections, the signal would be weak. meaning (and being fair) the closer the network is to a true internet connection, the more average joe walking along the street would pay.

now imagine 5000 residents in their homes or wondering the streets wanted to use the internet
scenario 1= 3 cents a month per user because the costs are divided down ($150/5000) so meshnet could be greedy and charge $1 a month per user. ($5000/$150=$4850 profit)

scenario 2= those relays closest the internet connection have their costs met by the other relays, so if the town agreed on $1 a month per user for high speed, that is pure profit and its offering priority high speed. the relays at the centre paying $10 internet. and have low speed due to distance and amount of relaying, may only charge an agreed 50c a month per user.

which if each relays coverage was 250 users the one closest to the internet connection would get $250 a month (greedy Bstard ) and the one at the centre would only get $115 ($125 income-$10 relay fee). and the ones inbetween would vary depending on distance.

making scenario 2 where the fee/profit ratio is linked to distance away from the internet. and scenario 1 is a set fee no matter where

pre-empting rebuttles
.. yes i know the relays are making more then the homes with true internet but for now im pointing out that for atmost $1 a month users could have a wifi connection anywhere in town

.. yes i know the IP limitations of routers (im theorizing, no need to knit pick its just an example)

.. yes i know i used dollars instead of bitcoins. but the dollar amounts were not important, just used for easy math purposes

.. yes i know the system would work better with average users were getting better internet speeds if 5000 were not just sharing 5 connections, but instead 50,100 or more

.. and yes i know the profit margin of the relays would be less greedy for the same $1 user value with more internet connections, but im trying to keep it simple

so which would you prefer
scenario 1A. set fee paid to one entity no matter the signal strength (distance from the true internet connection)
scenario 1B. varying fee paid to one entity dependent on signal strength.
scenario 2A. set fee paid to random relay owner no matter the signal strength (distance from the true internet connection)
scenario 2B. varying fee paid to random relay owner dependent on signal strength.

or if none of the above, how would you monetize the project

[Elwar]

my past couple posts were going off to a tangent of a country wide ISP avoidance.. so lets simplify it.
yes im continuing on about payment side of internet access. but because its local im not worrying about payment protocols as its easier to manage bitcoins with not many non-direct internet hops locally  

imagine in a town 5 people had the internet(blue circles) and were willing to open their wifi internet connection to random people and relays(red circles) to make a whole town WIFI accessible

I like the part about having your bitcoin address tied to your computer. You could have your connecting client sign a transaction for verification.

I do like how the closer you get to the "real" Internet the higher the cost because of the assumed better bandwidth.

But there should be a way to pay (and charge) for the best speeds and higher traffic. This would encourage people to be like miners and upgrade their hardware often with the final result being blazing fast network speeds and high data ceilings.

[kelle]

I use routers to  bypass ISPs.

[Elwar]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

[cbeast]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

I'm paying through the nose for a slow connection to a cable monopoly granted by the local municipality.

[franky1]

I like the part about having your bitcoin address tied to your computer. You could have your connecting client sign a transaction for verification.

I do like how the closer you get to the "real" Internet the higher the cost because of the assumed better bandwidth.

But there should be a way to pay (and charge) for the best speeds and higher traffic. This would encourage people to be like miners and upgrade their hardware often with the final result being blazing fast network speeds and high data ceilings.

as you say maybe part of the network connection code is when the wifi connection is made the user sends a signed TX to the relay which then authorises them to use the internet. and if it does not confirm on the blockchain, the relay disconnects the user.

the other part about paying for the best internet. its simple. if its "real" internet then its $1 per user connection. if it is relayed 1 hop $0.90
2hops $0.8,, and so on.. which can easily be accounted and pre-set when the relays are set up, because the relays will know how many hops to the real internet connection they are within the first minute of being screwed to a building, so no need to check daily, as its set.
the issue is that because of distance, there is no pay more to get more, as the distance is set (hops are a physical issue). if you ever used wifi repeaters/wireless extenders you'd know what i mean no extra money can make the laws of physics change

where the real money comes in would be if the real internet provider also owned the relays. that way each relay covering (example 25 users).

but it would however incentivise relays to get closer to a true internet connection, so the guy in the center currntly charging 50c, can then up his charge to $1 once he links his relay to a true internet connection in the centre.. but before that happens, users just throwing him extra funds wont get extra speed, purely by throwing extra funds then set charges

[franky1]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

I'm paying through the nose for a slow connection to a cable monopoly granted by the local municipality.

~slightly off topic~
lets hope your not a miner, throwing bitcoins at a electric company. coz thats not being a bitcoin investor, but a electric utility investor
(you'd b surprised how many are selling all their coins as soon as its mined to cash back into FIAT)

[cbeast]

Greed will destroy you.

Still using dial up to connect to the Internet?

Or are you enjoying the benefits of the greedy companies that want to offer more and more speed to make money?

I'm paying through the nose for a slow connection to a cable monopoly granted by the local municipality.

~slightly off topic~
lets hope your not a miner, throwing bitcoins at a electric company. coz thats not being a bitcoin investor, but a electric utility investor
(you'd b surprised how many are selling all their coins as soon as its mined to cash back into FIAT)

I was a miner before ASICs and did have to switch to altcoins when Bitcoin mining was no longer profitable. But to bring this point on topic, we can't avoid monopolies in rural areas. Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

[franky1]

I was a miner before ASICs and did have to switch to altcoins when Bitcoin mining was no longer profitable. But to bring this point on topic, we can't avoid monopolies in rural areas. Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

true, thats why i went back to basics with the town idea, as after the 10th relay it would be much like dial-up.. or for the younger generation of tech savvi people... tor

relaying internet at 30-100 metres for 3000 miles (capetown to north africa) just wouldnt work, especially if there was a 1million population all trying to grab a bit of the real internet relay/node from the border of egypt (scenario where all african internet was shut off)

a 1:10 ratio of real-internet:user works, kinda... but not a 1:1,000,000

[cbeast]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

[xDan]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

[cbeast]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

Meshnets don't use high powered transmitters. They depend on non-licensed freqs.

[Eotnak]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

yes, but it looks like a hastily drawn diagram, so no big deal

[franky1]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

what bores me most is when someone knit picks a 2 second diagrams and they try to point out specifics, but with a simple 2 second glance, misses the points and specifics of the whole idea

want me to draw the planet and say the world will always be a round far after we all died. and wait a knit pick of that hills, mountains, values make it uneven, and house foundations make parts flat. to ignore the point that the world will be around. just to say its not perfectly ROUND

[cbeast]

Wouldn't the radius need to intersect the center of adjacent transmitters?

what bores me most is when someone knit picks a 2 second diagrams and they try to point out specifics, but with a simple 2 second glance, misses the points and specifics of the whole idea

want me to draw the planet and say the world will always be a round far after we all died. and wait a knit pick of that hills, mountains, values make it uneven, and house foundations make parts flat. to ignore the point that the world will be around. just to say its not perfectly ROUND

It's not really a minor point. If fact, it would be a major factor in the placement and power of the transmitters. It would be a huge deal for stationary users. Competition may even drive people to kill their neighbor's wifi. A useful network would be contracted with licensed transmitters and carefully placed.

For what you suggest: Mycelium's ad hoc network for Bitcoincard resolves this for mobile systems by limiting the bandwidth to sms sized messages.

[franky1]

It's not really a minor point.

its a illustration of a fantasy scenario. not a blueprint of a business plan..

we are just tossing around theories and idea's the picture is not any kind of final design, draft design or anything close.. so dont sweat the small stuff.. try concentrating on the main points of the topic not the fact that roads are not black, that grass is not that shade of green, that towns do not have an oval bubble around them, and not all buildings are the same shade of gray...

.. that should cover it

.. oops. not quite. my numbers were inaccurate for pricing, the userbase per relay was innacurate (you cant put 250 homes in a 30m-100metre diameter) the translucent colouring does not account for signal loss due to thick wall penetration vs open air.. radio waves are not red or blue in colour. the circle at the center of each relay represents something the size of a router, yet in the image it looks to be the width of one side of a road (width of a car).

oh, and the way.. do you know when an image is not suppose to depict exact positioning or relay's, which you would expect at a final stage of a town planning meeting...... when the picture is not even of a real/true existing town!

now have a nice day.. hopefully the posts will stay on the topic of the idea, and no longer meander off course with knitpicking

[cbeast]

Ask the Libertarians how a "free market" would create a functional meshnet.

[Elwar]

Ask the Libertarians how a "free market" would create a functional meshnet.

That's what we're discussing right now. Welcome to the discussion.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

I would think that this type of setup would only be feasible in urban or suburban areas where population density is high. If population density is too low then users would rely on a small number of nodes for internet access, in other words there would only be one possible chain to get to the rest of the internet. These nodes would use some level of electricity when they are on and connected (or trying to connect) to the rest of the network. If the nodes are rarely used then a user may turn off their node (or they could turn off their node for any number of other reasons), cutting off internet access to others that rely on that node to get to the rest of the internet.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

(2)I like the idea of have the fees be distributed internally as each transmission could easily have 100 or more outputs if each node were to only transmit data 300 meters.

(2) well bitcoins are not sent 300 yards, they have to go through miners and sit on a blockchain. so thats means transactions need to be sent out of country to where there is internet. or if it was a new protocol (like meshcoin idea i brainfarted) then the principles of a blockchain as we see it today would be different.

If you needed to send data to a node that was 1,200 yards away then you would need to pay the node you send the data directly to (the one 300 yards from you), to the node it sends data to (total of 600 yards from you), the node 300 yards from the 2nd node (900 total yards from you) and the last node (the last payment is debatable, but lets say for arguments sake that we do pay the last one as well - total of 1,200 yards from you). This would involve sending payment to a total of 4 different nodes (a TX with 4 outputs).

Now for example if you needed to send data to a node 300,000 yards away (only ~170 miles) then you would need to send payment to 100 nodes (assuming the data can be sent in the most efficient manner). Payments would have to be set up this way as if they were not then all of the nodes would simply be relaying data for free (the net effect), as nodes would be getting compensated for receiving the data but having to pay to send it to the next node if it were not and nodes would have no incentive to relay data otherwise. 

(3)Another issue would be that of large websites that have a lot of traffic. Wouldn't surrounding nodes of where the node for major websites like CNN.com get overloaded with traffic?

(3) many websites have large userbase. but using the africa analogy. not every user would independently be sending data to the webwallet. instead the supernode that have a internet connection would (and they would be getting rich because of being the last node of the whole trip). if their computer couldnt handle such volume if suddenly 1million africans somehow all wanted to send data his direction all at the same time. then while offline another node with internet would relay it, getting the reward for doing so.

maybe part of programming the mesh network would be to ensure there were suitable supernodes that can handle large volume, and have limits of transmission per minute to allow a fair distribution for all nodes at the north african border who have internet. so that not only one node gets their part of the fee. eg to distribute the greed that one node isnt the only node transmitting to the webwallet

but these are all theories of how the back bone of a meshnetwork could turn out to be like in the future.. no one has really gone into too much detail about how value/balance would be confirmed in a non mining/short distance per-to-per network. or how transmission bloat/thousands of relays going through a single node at a country border  would be dealt with

These super nodes would be spending huge sums of money to send their data, not receiving huge sums of money. As with bitcoin the sender must always pay the fee. If the receiver was to pay the fee for data then a random node could simply send a bunch of junk data to random nodes that did not request and have no need for the data being received.

Having super nodes like this presents a couple of issues.

1- The nodes that connect to these super nodes, no matter how many connections the super nodes have would have to handle a lot more traffic then other nodes (that are not super nodes). This would ultimately result in the nodes that are connected to the super nodes to get overloaded with traffic.

2- Per my calculations a super node that has 1,000,000 connections would need to be able to connect to nodes ~95 miles away (this number is off due to rounding) in every direction. This would not only be technologically challenging to achieve this in itself but something with that much power would interfere with the communications with other nodes as there could only be a limited number of frequencies that could be used. This would mean that nodes within this 95 mile radius from the super node may not be able to communicate well (or at all) with other nodes.

[Stephen Gornick]

I'd like to share here some interesting links that I am sure most of you are already acquainted, but it seems to be important as reference:

Also, the Free Network Foundation (FNF) should be something to follow:

 - https://lists.thefnf.org/listinfo/discuss
 - http://lists.thefnf.org/pipermail/builders
 - https://lists.thefnf.org/listinfo
 - https://thefnf.org

And maybe SkyWire:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=380441.msg7588531#msg7588531

[Elwar]

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

[DannyElfman]

I was a miner before ASICs and did have to switch to altcoins when Bitcoin mining was no longer profitable. But to bring this point on topic, we can't avoid monopolies in rural areas. Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

true, thats why i went back to basics with the town idea, as after the 10th relay it would be much like dial-up.. or for the younger generation of tech savvi people... tor

relaying internet at 30-100 metres for 3000 miles (capetown to north africa) just wouldnt work, especially if there was a 1million population all trying to grab a bit of the real internet relay/node from the border of egypt (scenario where all african internet was shut off)

a 1:10 ratio of real-internet:user works, kinda... but not a 1:1,000,000

If 10 relays would mean that speeds would be unbearably slow then wouldn't this cause incentives to essentially have several "central" local internet communities/websites

[xDan]

Meshnets only work in high population density areas.

Why? Is this a limitation of hardware generally available, licensing is required for high enough powered transmitting devices? Or what?

Meshnets don't use high powered transmitters. They depend on non-licensed freqs.

Okay. I assume you mean current meshnets. Are there no open frequencies that can be used for long distance communications?

Because yeah. It seems a true centrally-owned-infrastructure-free dream cannot be had if there is a monopoly on long distance comms, as you said.

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

Well that is more interesting! If something like this could be used to link cities.

I'm guessing that terrain matters though and this "300km" was line of sight?

[cbeast]

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

Well that is more interesting! If something like this could be used to link cities.

I'm guessing that terrain matters though and this "300km" was line of sight?

feet, not kilometers.

[OnkelPaul]

feet, not kilometers.

Ah, mixed up imperial and metric units - always confusing, how should he know that km and ft are not approximately the same thing?
(actually, connection distances of up to 300km have been reported for Wifi technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi)

Onkel Paul

[cbeast]

feet, not kilometers.

Ah, mixed up imperial and metric units - always confusing, how should he know that km and ft are not approximately the same thing?
(actually, connection distances of up to 300km have been reported for Wifi technology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi)

Onkel Paul

I imagine if you use a large dish antenna you would be able to achieve great distances. So I suppose it is theoretically possible to get 300 km distance.

[Elwar]

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

Well that is more interesting! If something like this could be used to link cities.

I'm guessing that terrain matters though and this "300km" was line of sight?

feet, not kilometers.

304 km
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1984314/wi-fi-world-record-set-304km
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

Yes, it has to be line of site.


link first established on 2007-06-16
it appears to be permanent from Monte Amiata (Tuscany) to Monte Limbara (Sardinia)
frequency: 5765 MHz
IEEE 802.11a (Wi-Fi), bandwidth 5 MHz
Radio: Ubiquiti Networks XR5
Wireless routers: MikroTik RouterBOARD with RouterOS, NStreme optimization enabled
Length: 304 km (189 mi).
Antenna is 120 cm with handmade waveguide. 35 dBi estimated

[Bitcoin-hotep]

YES.

This is the answer to Net Neutrality. LANs will pop up all over also.

[cbeast]

Antennas using 802.11n have been able to achieve transmission distances over 300 km unamplified.

Well that is more interesting! If something like this could be used to link cities.

I'm guessing that terrain matters though and this "300km" was line of sight?

feet, not kilometers.

304 km
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1984314/wi-fi-world-record-set-304km
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi

Yes, it has to be line of site.


link first established on 2007-06-16
it appears to be permanent from Monte Amiata (Tuscany) to Monte Limbara (Sardinia)
frequency: 5765 MHz
IEEE 802.11a (Wi-Fi), bandwidth 5 MHz
Radio: Ubiquiti Networks XR5
Wireless routers: MikroTik RouterBOARD with RouterOS, NStreme optimization enabled
Length: 304 km (189 mi).
Antenna is 120 cm with handmade waveguide. 35 dBi estimated

I imagine with a VLA you could get thousands or even millions of miles.

[Bitcoin-hotep]

Is there any known existing mesh network whose goal is to mesh the world, to take control of the internet and put it in the people's hands?

[franky1]

Is there any known existing mesh network whose goal is to mesh the world, to take control of the internet and put it in the people's hands?

yea, they united people together and charge a fee for access, to their local supernode in your state/country so that you dont have to pay 1000 pennies per connection to individuals you just pay a supernode a monthly charge

....  you will find many different states/countries having these supernodes, their names are as folows
bell
BT
vodafone
horizon
t-mobile
teliphonica
.. the list goes on, but they prefer to be called ISP's not supernodes. though they do the same job

unless you can solve the super node problem so that individuals get paid to relay, and have it so that its still fast even passing through 5000+ people.. then the supernode relays(as explained 2 pages back) will just be the same as the established internet connection entities i just listed, greedy and centralized.

[TippingPoint]

Wifi has the advantage of already being available.  Optical communication using inexpensive LEDs and basic optics may be useful in some locations to create a 10 Mbit/s full duplex Ethernet point-to-point link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA
http://ronja.twibright.com/



Ronja 10M Metropolis
Provides 10Mbps full duplex on a full duplex AUI interface. The distance is 1.4km with 130mm lenses and 900m with 90mm lenses. The transmitter is a 625nm LED diode, output power 17mW and the optics is made from loupes.

[xDan]

https://projectmeshnet.org

May have already been linked, but, has anyone here actually used this? What are the features, limitations, flaws?

It seems mildly interesting but, as far as I read you can't randomly connect to anyone, you have to find somebody willing to "peer" with you... So e.g. somebody passing through a city can't just connect to some Wifi node on that network.

[Bitcoin-hotep]

Is there any known existing mesh network whose goal is to mesh the world, to take control of the internet and put it in the people's hands?

yea, they united people together and charge a fee for access, to their local supernode in your state/country so that you dont have to pay 1000 pennies per connection to individuals you just pay a supernode a monthly charge

....  you will find many different states/countries having these supernodes, their names are as folows
bell
BT
vodafone
horizon
t-mobile
teliphonica
.. the list goes on, but they prefer to be called ISP's not supernodes. though they do the same job

unless you can solve the super node problem so that individuals get paid to relay, and have it so that its still fast even passing through 5000+ people.. then the supernode relays(as explained 2 pages back) will just be the same as the established internet connection entities i just listed, greedy and centralized.

You are missing the point.

It may SEEM like a "company" like this would become greedy and centralized, but I was not talking about companies.
And once the WHOLE WORLD was meshed, no one would have to pay, everyone would just be connected by default and it would kill the big companies.

[franky1]

You are missing the point.

It may SEEM like a "company" like this would become greedy and centralized, but I was not talking about companies.
And once the WHOLE WORLD was meshed, no one would have to pay, everyone would just be connected by default and it would kill the big companies.

so supply me free internet today
oh wait equipment costs money, electricity costs money,

then when scaling it up for supernodes to reach bigger distances telecommunication licences (radio signals) cost money. higher tech to handle multiple users without bottle necking, costs money..

google is only offering free internet in area's not because it costs nothing, but because they make enough profit from other projects to offer free internet.

if everyone on the planet could afford to buy a relay that could handle 5000 people going through it atleast. and be getting enough wealth from other jobs or projects to not charge for the privelidge..

again if EVERYONE ON THE PLANET could do this.. then we are indeed in a fantasy where everything in life is free and that there are no poor people.

(please put the weed away and think about things in reality! why oh why do i have to keep bringing you back to reality.. your stuck in your utopian dreams.. can you atleast admit that, as its the first sign of recovery if you can.)

[Bitcoin-hotep]

It wouldn't have to be the whole planet. If 90% of people were on a free network and 10% of people were paying for internet (because they chose to), that would be better than what we have today. The point is, try to get it everywhere.

And I was just asking if anyone was doing it, I didn't say you should do it, or I should.

[franky1]

It wouldn't have to be the whole planet. If 90% of people were on a free network and 10% of people were paying for internet (because they chose to), that would be better than what we have today. The point is, try to get it everywhere.

And I was just asking if anyone was doing it, I didn't say you should do it, or I should.

you think 90% are above poverty line to just share internet freely?........................................................

[edit 5 minutes later] sorry i just collapsed with laughter

[DannyElfman]

Wifi has the advantage of already being available.  Optical communication using inexpensive LEDs and basic optics may be useful in some locations to create a 10 Mbit/s full duplex Ethernet point-to-point link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA
http://ronja.twibright.com/



Ronja 10M Metropolis
Provides 10Mbps full duplex on a full duplex AUI interface. The distance is 1.4km with 130mm lenses and 900m with 90mm lenses. The transmitter is a 625nm LED diode, output power 17mW and the optics is made from loupes.

This "wifi hotspot" still needs to be connected to the rest of the internet via traditional means (an ISP)

[franky1]

Wifi has the advantage of already being available.  Optical communication using inexpensive LEDs and basic optics may be useful in some locations to create a 10 Mbit/s full duplex Ethernet point-to-point link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA
http://ronja.twibright.com/
Ronja 10M Metropolis
Provides 10Mbps full duplex on a full duplex AUI interface. The distance is 1.4km with 130mm lenses and 900m with 90mm lenses. The transmitter is a 625nm LED diode, output power 17mW and the optics is made from loupes.

This "wifi hotspot" still needs to be connected to the rest of the internet via traditional means (an ISP)

yep and the owner that has true internet connection, can work out if he can handle 20 connections. then he can work out 5% of his internet bill+profit. and charge that as a month fee to 20 connections he allows..

after all why would he be forced to pay for the internet and have 20 other people suck his bandwidth..for free

[Bitcoin-hotep]

It wouldn't have to be the whole planet. If 90% of people were on a free network and 10% of people were paying for internet (because they chose to), that would be better than what we have today. The point is, try to get it everywhere.

And I was just asking if anyone was doing it, I didn't say you should do it, or I should.

you think 90% are above poverty line to just share internet freely?........................................................

[edit 5 minutes later] sorry i just collapsed with laughter

OH MY GOD PLEASE GET YOUR HEAD CHECKED

You are the most ignorant (ignoring things said to you) person I have ever met.

I ASKED if anyone had these GOALS. I NEVER said that I was going to do this.

[franky1]

well now we know you have no desire to be involved and lack insightful idea's to help make something like this happen. you can get on with your life.

now lets get back on topic,
to everyone else with interest

its obvious that people wont want to offer their bandwidth and relay equipment for free, as noted a couple pages ago and elswhere.

i think that a starting point would be to get towns wifi covered first. with local relays.. then expand to going town to town and entwining these towns together with long distance technology later on.

so lets concentrate on the local side again as the country-wide internet loss is not an immediate threat, but getting more wi-fi coverage can be a current belefit. and it slowly introduces people to the concept.

so which local (within city limit) idea's do people have that can work

[Elwar]

I think the first step would be to design the software (some open source solutions already available) and factor in paying for it with bitcoins.

Then from there we can ramp up to the hardware.

With hardware requirements we can have an open source hardware platform that people can then start creating themselves and someone can start mass producing similar to mining hardware companies.


One big decision would be the way to charge.

Is it better to charge for time with a set "pipe" of limited bandwidth, or charge for blocks of data usage?

Time
Pros:
Most people are used to paying per minute for phones or per month or per day/week, etc.
The longer the time for subscription, the less Bitcoin transactions needed

Cons:
If a network connection is not highly utilized, limiting the connection of someone trying to move large amounts of data is unnecessary.
There would only be a certain amount of "reserved" slots per connection to guarantee users' access to the pipe.

Usage
Pros:
Each connection can serve as many users as it wants at full capacity
You only pay for what you use, if you don't send or receive much data you don't pay as much as network hogs
It encourages software/habits to not use as much data for transfers

Cons:
Most people prefer to just pay on a subscription basis and not have to worry about how much data they're using
People using a lot of data regularly like gamers or skype or netflix or other large transfers will have to pay more
Discouraging usage might not make economic sense for a system set up to get paid for usage

Thoughts?

[Bitcoin-hotep]

well now we know you have no desire to be involved and lack insightful idea's to help make something like this happen. you can get on with your life.

I have been getting on with my life. All I came to this thread for was to say "This is the answer to the net neutrality problem" and "Does anyone plan on making a Global network" then you started acting like I had a fist in your ass.

[raganius]

Hi, I have found this. Sounds interesting.

On Covert Acoustical Mesh Networks in Air
Michael Hanspach and Michael Goetz
Fraunhofer FKIE, Wachtberg, Germany
http://cryptome.org/2014/06/covert-acoustical-mesh.pdf

Abstract
— Covert channels can be used to circumvent system and network policies by establishing communications that have not been considered in the design of the computing system. We construct a covert channel between different computing systems that utilizes audio modulation/demodulation to exchange data between the computing systems over the air medium. The underlying network stack is based on a communication system that was originally designed for robust underwater communication. We adapt the communication system to implement covert and stealthy communications by utilizing the ultrasonic frequency range. We further demonstrate how the scenario of covert acoustical communication over the air medium can be extended to multi-hop communications and even to wireless mesh networks. A covert acoustical mesh network can be conceived as a meshed botnet or malnet that is accessible via inaudible audio transmissions. Different applications of covert acoustical mesh networks are presented, including the use for remote keylogging over multiple hops. It is shown that the concept of a covert acoustical mesh network renders many conventional security concepts useless, as acoustical communications are usually not considered. Finally, countermeasures against covert acoustical mesh networks are discussed, including the use of lowpass filtering in computing systems and a host-based intrusion detection system for analyzing audio input and output in order to detect any irregularities.
Index Terms
— malware, network covert channels, wireless mesh networks, ultrasonic communication

[onezerobit]

----Very Very Expensive----
Something similar to the mesh network offered by the concept of Google Drones.
there will be a need for Antennas with good range, and Satellite Uplink and Downlink To cover the whole world with the mesh.

Instead, if we find a way to mask the data, under the packets which will not face The control from the ISP's would be easily the best, cost effective way to accomplish what we desire.
I maybe blunt and naive in this, but with the right minds working on it, it is very likely to be possible.

Thoughts?

[Elwar]

----Very Very Expensive----
Something similar to the mesh network offered by the concept of Google Drones.
there will be a need for Antennas with good range, and Satellite Uplink and Downlink To cover the whole world with the mesh.

Instead, if we find a way to mask the data, under the packets which will not face The control from the ISP's would be easily the best, cost effective way to accomplish what we desire.
I maybe blunt and naive in this, but with the right minds working on it, it is very likely to be possible.

Thoughts?

You are describing safecoin if it ever gets going.

It's not like we need to cover the globe in order to turn things on. A small network in major cities connected through an encrypted tunnel via the ISPs will be fine for a long time in most places.

But think of places like China where their Internet is severely censored. This is likely to be the way of things everyone else. Government likes to fill spaces where it is not involved. The Internet is like a vacuum of freedom that will be filled by government regulation eventually.

[libivan]

There's Kryptoradio: http://kryptoradio.koodilehto.fi (Connect to the bitcoin network from anywhere – even without the Internet!)

And there's also this Reddit:
Nick Szabo: "Reliable & secure P2P broadcast crucial to block chain protocols. Radio more secure than simulated broadcast on Internet."
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2ajrmg/nick_szabo_reliable_secure_p2p_broadcast_crucial

A link to this thread was put there.

[raganius]

Also, this post might be of interest to be quoted here:

One of the key tenets is that bitcoin block data is easy to distribute widely.  Information wants to be free.  One of the ways we may keep bitcoin healthy and free is finding alternative ways to distribute block chain data.  This provides resilience in case the P2P mesh network is attacked.

My personal favorite is satellite distribution, something I have been working on quietly in the background.  Satellites means one of two things:

• 1. Buy some bandwidth on an existing satellite.
• 2. Launch your own satellite.

Buying bandwidth is the most cost-effective, and readily attainable method today.  However, not just any satellite channel will do.  Bitcoin requires a dedicated, one-to-many broadcast mechanism.  This is like renting a TV channel -- although at much lower bandwidth requirements (1MB every minute or two).

Nanosatellites have recently cut satellite costs down from the absurd, traditional $20m+ build, $50m+ launch.  There is now a standardized cubesat size.  Two innovations reduced launch costs down into the $100k's range: (1) Many organizations collaborate together (rideshare), paying a portion of the launch cost.  Sometimes 27 or more cubesats are launched at once.  (2) These clusters of cubesats are launched as a secondary payload.  A primary payload has priority, which means secondary payloads are sometimes not launched into a proper orbit.  With these two factors, cubesat construction and launch is lowered to a reachable price: $2m or so.

Several people, including some investors, in the bitcoin community have privately expressed interest.  It seemed like a good time to move forward with Phase 1 of the project.

Phase 1 is:   flesh out cubesat specifications, research leased bandwidth pricing, and specific data needs (xmit tech, frequencies).  The initial goal is broadcasting worldwide (or at least major continents) the latest bitcoin block, over and over again.  Stretch goals include broadcasting recent chains, recent TX's, and other data.

A word about government involvement:  Set expectations properly.  There are three points at which government is inevitably involved, at some level: (a) getting launch approval, (b) ground station(s) inevitably must be located in some useful geolocation, and (c) frequency selection.   Fundamentally, these satellites will be broadcasting public, not-encrypted blockchain data, so the content should not be an issue.

Donations accepted at 1M9MyyPsAak7zRjW4D96pTxDaAEpDDZLR7

Feb 05 update:

Project update #1 (PDF): http://www.dunveganspace.com/goals/bitsat/BitSatUpdate1.pdf
BitSat architecture, v0.1 (PDF): http://www.dunveganspace.com/goals/bitsat/BitSatArchitecture-0.1.pdf

Files posted on http://www.dunveganspace.com/goals/bitsat

Sponsors (1 BTC or more):

• Mohit Kalra (2 BTC, May 2014)
• Unknown (1 BTC, Apr 2014)
• http://www.redstarmining.com/ (1 BTC, Jan 2014)
• Roger Ver (5 BTC, Dec 2013)
• Erik Voorhees (5 BTC, Dec 2013)
• Rusty Russell (1 BTC, Dec 2013)
• BitcoinGrant.org (25 BTC, Nov 2013)
• Jeff Garzik (1 BTC, Nov 2013)

Standard disclaimer:  This is a personal project.  Nothing to do with my employer.