The Internet 2: The New Batch

[Triple Zero]

I did wonder about WiFi but I didn't know enough about it to say anything.

I wrote up this post which goes a bit about wifi, and then my internet connection got lost before I could post it, the irony

fortunately it was in my copy/paste buffer:

I think the biggest problem would be to get enough people on this Internet-2 to make it really interesting again. However, looking at a forum like this (or in general), it doesn't seem to take that many people to have a good time and do interesting stuff.

Past that, it's just a simple case of finding a suitable side-channel present on the Internet One, writing a proxy for it, probably with some encryption thrown in. Given the fact that we got bandwidth gushing all over the fucking place, nobody is going to notice that, for example, what appears to be just a funky ever-changing signature image actually contains an encrypted bitstream that is part of the backbone of Internet-2.

Sure, a solution like this would probably take the form of text-only newsgroup style messaging, and no it most probably wouldn't be available at work (lest you risk your job--although maybe your iPhone or Android could do it), but Usenet was huge back in the days, and before that, FidoNet. To be fair, it will probably be a bit more shiny than that.

Also, if everybody would start using Opera Unite (when they finally release it out of beta) and make it real popular for proper purposes and such, they can't really take it away anymore. It was pretty much designed for this sort of thing.

So that would be kind of like "stealing" the infrastructure, or rather, piggybacking on it. Might be best as a last resort when it comes to that.

For our own infrastructure, I just realize, currently, you got a shitload of wifi routers everywhere. I've been driving around town, having NetStumbler log all the (mostly encrypted) wifi networks everywhere. Just for fun, I'm gonna see if I can plot them on a sort of map. But I digress.
As long as these routers can "see" eachother, I suppose their firmware can be reprogrammed* so they would function as a Router+Repeater, routing the network packets among themselves and create a Wide Area Network, it would be City-wide, independent from the Internet One.

Start thinking up a snazzy name for it

*there's already Linux builds out there for most popular routers, this can be done and requires no screws or messing around with the hardware, you just upload the new firmware via the local network or via a USB port if the router has one.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Additionally, one could have some widget in a place that can see a lot of those open nodes, routing in a randomized way if big brother ever gets really tough. Kind of like a physical TOR, I guess. If you were really paranoid, you could encrypt stuff and make it transfer via a random open network you were in range of.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Jusat like the network in Little Brother 

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Damn it! Cory Doctorow keeps stealing my ideas before I think of them!

GOD DAMN YOU, TIME TRAVELING CORY DOCTOROW! 

[the other anonymous]

All I want is an underground Twitter.

I'll call it "dark twitter."

I'll randomly hook up to other people's computers, and we'll send 140-character messages to each other. Future versions will allow multiple people to join a "hash tag."

And just so it's all anonymous and dark-net-y, we won't store any of it on a server. No records! No transcripts! No prosecution! Mwahahaha!

-toa,
what? not every joke can be funny...

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Don't confuse The Internet with the World Wide Web...

That's not what I was talking about. I mean it's physically separate from the internet most people use. It's supposed to be mostly fiber and IIRC they started it in Norway or Denmark or something. Wish I could find the article on it... I know what the Internet is and what the web is.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

I did wonder about WiFi but I didn't know enough about it to say anything.

.

For our own infrastructure, I just realize, currently, you got a shitload of wifi routers everywhere. I've been driving around town, having NetStumbler log all the (mostly encrypted) wifi networks everywhere. Just for fun, I'm gonna see if I can plot them on a sort of map. But I digress.
As long as these routers can "see" eachother, I suppose their firmware can be reprogrammed* so they would function as a Router+Repeater, routing the network packets among themselves and create a Wide Area Network, it would be City-wide, independent from the Internet One.

Start thinking up a snazzy name for it

*there's already Linux builds out there for most popular routers, this can be done and requires no screws or messing around with the hardware, you just upload the new firmware via the local network or via a USB port if the router has one.

Tomato and DDWRT can do this with a lot of the Linksys WRT54G routers and you can do it through the browser menu you get when you want to configure your router. The firmware enables all sorts of cool shit.

[Captain Utopia]

Tomato and DDWRT can do this with a lot of the Linksys WRT54G routers and you can do it through the browser menu you get when you want to configure your router. The firmware enables all sorts of cool shit.

I ran DDWRT with my WRT54G, after I got past the smugness stage I noticed that the performance sucked. It was the difference between ~14mbps with DDWRT and ~80mbps with the original firmware.

Maybe I was doing something wrong, I didn't bother reading the proper installation instructions and I managed to kill the two gb ethernet ports on my mainboard before I figured out the default settings were to blame.

[Requia ☣]

DD-WRT has shitty default settings if you ever start a p2p program.  Also somewrt54Gs (the newer ones) don't work right with it.

Developing a second internet would be a trillion dollar project, especialy the last mile shit since it wouldn't piggyback on the phone/cable infrastructure like the first one did.

[Requia ☣]

But the web can deliver targeted adverts to me, Google knows enough to not try to sell me tampax, and in this way advertisers get value they never could before. I don't mind giving away some data if it means I get less adverts, or if the adverts I do get I might actually be interested by.

And at the end of the day, if you give a choice between a 15 second advert at the start of a youtube show, or 5 minutes dispersed throughout a show on microsoft video.. advertisers are going to notice that they get better results with the targeted campaigns.

There's no reason why it can't be win/win, with the current TV model there's basically no way they can survive without being the way they are though.

In my experience targeted advertising has little if anything to do with anything I might click on.

[Cramulus]

Developing a second internet would be a trillion dollar project, especialy the last mile shit since it wouldn't piggyback on the phone/cable infrastructure like the first one did.

what about the current wifi infrastructure as discussed upthread?


I'm sure it would be tough to develop a new internet if you were aiming at recreating what we have now


if such a thing emerges, I would guess it will start as a small network, maybe something that links a few colleges
and then grows organically from there as people find out about it.

[rygD]

Why would you want to physically separate it from internet 1?  I don't know all the ins and outs, but with VPNs and tunneling we could have a completely independent internet 2 that you could do whatever you want with.  This would take advantage of the existing infrastructure, but may require the purchase/development of some hardware and software (a cross between a physical encryption device, one of those nifty key fobs with an access code, as well as Enki's physical TOR thing comes to mind...I need to read Little Brother.). 

If you encrypt it you can have it be extremely secure, it can be mixed with all the other data on the internet, but largely unnoticed.  I have worked on nodes on these types of networks before, but people with far more knowledge than me developed it, I merely got it up and running and maintained it.  I could do some research on it, but I am pretty sure it would be fairly expensive, but less expensive than going and creating a second physical network,  but having a much larger area (anywhere that currently has internet connectivity) covered.  It actually seems, when I think about it, like it would be a little closer to what we had before the web was developed.  You would either need to have a decent amount of technical knowledge to get it going, and it could cost you a bit.

Also, just like internet 1, you could have VOIP, however if this is something that was shared for free (outside of the cost of the additional equipment needed to get you on the network) you could also have global voice communication.  You could use wifi technology to create wireless access points to it, however I question the usefulness of running it wholly off of wifi, as it would then be geographically isolated.  For that you have meatspace.

Problems that would need to be worked out early would be getting routers and equipment all using the same protocol, working out ip schemes, etc., and getting everyone on board.  I am sure if a group of people started doing this and either advertised it a little or somehow spread the word it would grow, but the problem is if you put too much information out there, the large corporations with the money would quickly jump on it and pollute it.  It then comes down to how much do you talk about the existence of such a network and how much information about accessing it do you share.  This would be a good idea if you are trying to limit it to a group of known individuals.  So I am pretty sure it is essentially just a darknet in the traditional sense, and what I am thinking might just make it more secure and more accessible. 

I suppose I should do some homework on darknets, as that may be a cheaper or easier way to go.  Maybe extranets also?

As for accessing it on a node that is not intended to be on that network (000@work), it may work via a software or hardware solution but the network would likely need to be in place or very well into the planning stage before it can be implemented.  (I guess I should also look into Opera Unite...Opera is my browser of choice, so I should look into it anyway)

Actually, the more I think about it, the wifi idea, as well as packet radio and what not, trying to have it physically isolated from internet-1 would prevent you from having to pay for the connectivity, however you are stuck to the geographical area, and would still need to have access to that network, either by stealing, borrowing or buying access via your own equipment.  Then perhaps to link those geographically isolated areas, someone could connect them to the big network through more traditional means.

I guess I need to be more active here.  Lots of stuff I wish I had known about before.  Would anyone actually have any interest in really working on this stuff?  I know there are many in the world who would love to do this, I just wonder why they haven't started working on it, or if they have, who and where and what they have so far...

[Captain Utopia]

In a worst case scenario any encrypted network traffic, which the government software installed at every ISP cannot decipher, is automatically flagged as suspicious. Any attempt to hide the content in images or teXt mUnGIng will be similarly detectable. In other words - in a worst case scenario you can't piggyback on the existing infrastructure unless it's a really low-bandwidth message such as a predefined trigger.

[Cramulus]

Hey, welcome back rygD!

Problems that would need to be worked out early would be getting routers and equipment all using the same protocol, working out ip schemes, etc., and getting everyone on board.  I am sure if a group of people started doing this and either advertised it a little or somehow spread the word it would grow, but the problem is if you put too much information out there, the large corporations with the money would quickly jump on it and pollute it.  It then comes down to how much do you talk about the existence of such a network and how much information about accessing it do you share.  This would be a good idea if you are trying to limit it to a group of known individuals.  So I am pretty sure it is essentially just a darknet in the traditional sense, and what I am thinking might just make it more secure and more accessible. 

Woah, great thoughts here.

the big corps will want to cash in on it after it's popular with cool kids. That's inevitable, it's just the natural cycle of things. But by then, all the cool kids will be on the internet 3.

I guess I need to be more active here.  Lots of stuff I wish I had known about before.  Would anyone actually have any interest in really working on this stuff?  I know there are many in the world who would love to do this, I just wonder why they haven't started working on it, or if they have, who and where and what they have so far...

I don't have enough technical knowledge to effectively help, but I'll use the fuck out of whatever you make. 

[Requia ☣]

In a worst case scenario any encrypted network traffic, which the government software installed at every ISP cannot decipher, is automatically flagged as suspicious. Any attempt to hide the content in images or teXt mUnGIng will be similarly detectable. In other words - in a worst case scenario you can't piggyback on the existing infrastructure unless it's a really low-bandwidth message such as a predefined trigger.

I've been trying to get people into the idea that they should encrypt everything they can, just to throw up chaff for things that actually should be encrypted.