Friday, July 30, 2010

Praxis: Local Communications -- the "Mesh Potato."


Interesting. A bow and flourish of the boonie hat to Brother John for the link.

17 comments:

Unknown said...

We need some (alot) of these..

And if we get a bunch of them they would be "meshed potatoes"

Bad Cyborg said...

Holy shith! (thank you, John) this could completely do away with the need for wired field phones.

I can still use a soldering iron. Is a kit of this thing available? Or maybe a PCB (I wouldn't trust speed like this to wire wrap)and parts list? If some sort of kit IS available, you guys can send me the parts and postage paid return mailer and I would be willing to build as many as I am able in the time remaining. (Hey! What's a 10%-er for if not stuff like this?)

Dutchman has my email if anyone is interested.

Bad Cyborg X

Anonymous said...

Alittle security would be nice with support for something like this in this hardware:
http://zfoneproject.com/

regards,
Endyr

pdxr13 said...

Wired field telephones will never go away completely. Simple (analog voice, battery or crank-ring, switchboard with buttons and plug/jack) is good in a pre-placed network that is geographically small (CQ, LP/OP 1-8, barn, garage, neighbors, etc. within a couple miles of each other) and doesn't have many nodes. Cheap & 19th century tech is hard to beat, if you have the time in advance of need to set it up and get folks trained.

Endyr wonders where z-phone or PGPfone fits? Me, too.

First things first. The village (tent city) needs cheap comm fast using "smart" handsets already owned by the residents (rfn!). Fire up Mesh Potato(s), test, post numbers on a chalk board for various official services, including automated 411 service.

An emergency response team ought to arrive with a case (many many) of charged unassigned tested handsets to make certain important people can have comm. What are the cheapest useful smartphones? Waterproof models?

FEMA supervisors and US Gov. have 'phones: IRIDIUM. Maximum super-ness and highest possible cost, run by Boeing/spook agencies.

What I didn't notice is a limit of numbers stated. I noticed XX, does that mean only 99 addresses available for the 15 calls possible per node? This is not so different from BellSys subscribers vs. lines available (7-10:1 is reasonable).

Not much detail yet on how billing customers/limiting access might work.

Keep calls short and important!

Cheers.

TPaine said...

Being a techno-nerd, I really like this! The possibilities are endless!

rexxhead said...

Is it April already?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info. I saved the page.

Radiowave said...

A little like TOR for telephones. This is just begging though, for TOR style unique encryption per hop.

Bad Cyborg said...

I posted a question about onboard encryption. I also noticed that there is an ethernet connection block on the system diagram. That would allow data encryption on a laptop. It wold also allow VOIP calls to be encrypted in the same way. Wouldn't stop determined snoopers but changing codes and good commsec would help there.

The Packetman said...

Just happened to notice this link at Ace

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20100723.aspx

Anonymous said...

2M ham radio stuff packet spread spectrum rtty,even saying email 30km + maybe sat bounce or moon bounce look it up goo 2 way com without serious radio stuff .02

Anonymous said...

encryption with spread spectrun alg on your side you dictate freq spread .02 spread freq you decide on the code. short binary email baud rate low works asap.
of linguistic quick code like am indian etc , or be creative it all works well. buy the time a catch happens change whole freq in lo watt area like 5 km.

Loren said...

Problem with this is, it's wireless. The gov has dozens of assets that can locate these nodes.

Much like radio, it does have a purpose, but it also has the severe weakness of telling everyone who bothers to listen where it is.

Anonymous said...

"Not much detail yet on how billing customers/limiting access might work."

Do you want to fill this new infrastructure up with billing paper trails and backdoor spy holes, so that law enforcement can police the public morality when drug dealers spend their gambling winnings on abortions for their whores? If so, then don't even bother to build it.

Alternatively, you could set up a billing infrastructure using anonymous electronic bearer cash, billed by the minute, so every customer can be anonymous. Each new call could be done with a new connection from a randomly generated telephone id, so no one can compile a list of who called who.

Anonymous said...

Inevitably, someone will show up at the meshed potatoes office who objects to the large variety of legislative dictates it ignores. These persons need to be made to understand that their actions are regarded with extreme displeasure by most of the community. This is key. If enough people felt extreme displeasure, then candidates could be elected in November on the platform of repealing every law passed since the year 1900. A Sheriff could be elected who promises not to enforce any law passed since 1900. But if the customers that want to use this thing don't already feel extreme displeasure, don't bother to build it.

Dr.D said...

Don't throw you radios and field phones away yet boys, these devices have very limited transmit power, and being 802.11b/g their also 2.4 ghz ( WiFi) there are severely affected by terrain, if you don't have line of sight between units you will have an epic FAIL! Terrain is also trees and other foliage, leaves provide a very efficient attenuator to signals at these frequencies.
This why cell phones don't work well in the woods in the summer but do work in the winter. Stick with Manpack 38-76 Mhz radios, Ham 6 Meter 50-54 Mhz and Vhf 135-170 Mhz, and 2 meter Ham 144-148 mhz

These things are targeted at 3rd world villages, not battlefields.


Dr.D III

Anonymous said...

"Stick with Manpack 38-76 Mhz radios, Ham 6 Meter 50-54 Mhz and Vhf 135-170 Mhz, and 2 meter Ham 144-148 mhz"

If someone was going shopping or building for a cryptoized battlefield voice communication device, which band should they want, and why? What device do you most hope the open source types will build and popularize?