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I just read mycorrhiza’s log 'Computing Within Limits & Solar Protocol' and something about the solar protocol reasonated with me. I find it interesting to put so much focus on solar energy and the way if flows. The sun is the ultimate provider of most of earths surface energy, the other bit being geothermal. It makes sense to base energy efficent networking technology around it. I like the protocols manifesto and hope to see if it becomes something more.
'Computing Within Limits & Solar Protocol' link
Here are some of my own ideas on networking and new technologies.
Dreams are wierd things. I do not mean the nappy time dreams, though they are strange in their own ways. Rather I mean our fantasy dreams of things we would rather be doing and places we would rather be seeing. Idealistic scenarios, possibilites for our lives which live in the ethereal foam of chance hazed in time. Fantasies filled with half baked ideas, imaginary people filled with eternal love and connection, places beauty and community and connection. Ideas of contribution to some good in the world. Things which people could achieve, but rarely do.
One of my dreams is to travel the world and set up internet for poor communities in developing countries. Loading up sollar powered pis/SBCs with a local copy of wikipedia and star maps and all those good educational programs. Creating local radio networks. I also sometimes of being a teacher, using these tools and networks to teach unadvantaged kids.
I don't know how long the thoughts exactly been in my head or when it got there besides "years ago" but its a reoccuring dream of mine which does not fade like most of them do. Theres something about the idea which reasonates with me.
It is not internet which these communities *really* need but food, water, healthcare, and efforts to unpollute their enviroments. Compared to those things accessing the internet isn't exactly at the top of the needs list. But knowledge and education should not be entirely thrown in the trash either.
A single webpage, or blog, or wikipedia article, or youtube video, could positively impact a kids desire to learn forever. Kids need curiosity more now than ever before if they are to succede in a world ever-growing in complexity and communications.
I don't feel as if I have a super good authority to speak of networks seeing as how I am a humble electrician-mechanic-microcontroller programmer and not a experienced network developer who designs protocols and runs the cables and sets up stacks for a living. But I also have enough general knowledge on the subject to speak with an above-average authority give or take a technical miswording here or there. I took the 'jack of all trades king of none' approach to life. This whole paragraph feels kind of pointless post-writing it but ill keep it in anyways.
It doesn't take a network engineer to realize how bad ISPs and cellular data providers are fucking you over. Just take a quick glance at your internet and cellular bills. Ill bet you anything most of you are paying over 100$ a month if not way more for that good high speed unlimited data shit. You better believe they're making a killing in profits and those margins keep going up and up for them while end-user speeds keep staying the same.
And thats not even going into the sneaky bullshit scam packages they try to force the old and unknowing into. In short, ISPs and Cellular network providers are the new cable. They got you by the balls/vag and are rubbing their nips while they tell you how sorry they are about not being able to provide a better deal. South park nailed it over a decade ago with this clip
But they got us in their grip for a reason, internet and TV are historically MASSIVE infrastuctres requiring a LOT OF FUCKING MONEY to set up and a good chunk of change to maintain. They have at least a few good excuses underneath a pile of bullshit for needing to charge as much as they do.
And its not like you can just make your own ISP-oh wait you can, and when people tried they either got their startup ISP companies murked, assimilated, or it was too shitty compared to the competition and went bankrupt.
No matter what kind of cool, open, decentralized or federated protocol service you come up with, its still built on the infastructure of the old internet. There is no way of visiting a solar powered site or using IRC or any of that without first bending the knee to a network provider. Ever since the days of dialup this has been the case.
Lets not forget the centralized authority nature of domain names either, you have to bend the knee to a domain registar paying a yearly bill just for the right to have your metaphorical name in a directory book.
Wouldn't it be so much better if these open and free protocols were actually open and free to connect to? Wouldn't you like a kind of internet that doesn't require the leeching of money or the mercy of public wifi? Wouldn't it be nice to have domain names without the subscription model?
That is a dream I have, one of a truly free internet, Not a superfically free one. A place for information to be freely exchanged without gatekeeping. An internet of the people.
A murky image of an idea is beginning to formulate in my neural pathways. The helium network is a new kind of decentralized netowrk built on devices which transmit IOT data between eachother. What about a network built off similar LoRaWAN radio technology used to transmit internet data instead? There are obvious limitations to radio technology which made it historically impractical for internet data transmission compared to good old wires. The particularly big one being loss or corruption of data packets as the radio waves propigate in the atmosphere or bounce off structures.
LoRaWAN Is a fairly new radio technology which solves some historical issues mentioned above while drastically improving radio range of transmission/reception. Crpytographic blockchains are also fairly new technologies which allows for trustless validation of ledger data through cryptographic principles and proof of work algorithms. Pineapple-apple-pen these concepts together and you get the Helium network which has proven it can both validate information being sent/recieved and can have huge coverage distances especially near cities. This data is limited to IOT stuff which is fairly simple to encode as data, GPS position, sensor true/false states, temp readings, stuff like that.
Is it so far a step to make for that IOT data to instead be slightly more complex internet protocol data? If we can make that step, it might be the first piece in the puzzle of a decentralized internet.
I have a question for you now. In a theoretical world where this technology advanced to a point of having a router-like box you can buy to be a part of this radio-internet network. An upfront cost of a couple hundred bucks maybe, but once your on the network it is free to use and access. The information transfer rates would still be abysmal maybe a bit better than dialup so no high res pictures or videos. You could access the small-net protocols like gemini, gopher,spartan, the minimalized solar websites, ect ect or if thats not possible maybe have equivalents for the new network. Extremely network minimal internet protocols.
Once we involve the cryptocurrency mining aspect of it that will really incentivise people to contribute to the network, but even without all that, would you go for this idea? Limited but free data transmition and minimal protocols to share text information.
It would take a lot of engineering and work to make these vauge ideas a reality. There are undoubtedly technical and logistical issues abound which would need to be ironed out. But do you think it is possible? That there might be a chance? I do. I see a future of decentralized technologies and blockchain economies. Maybe that the optimistic part of me. To believe in a chance for things to change. Do you share in my ideas of a peoples internet? Do you think im stupid and my ideas flawed? Or maybe you, a hacker, tinkerer, developer type, see these ideas and let them spark some of your own? Thats the important things, ideas sparking ideas sparking ideas, which might produce a flame in reality.