[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.

[1713968878]

1713968878

[1713968878]

1713968878

[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/