Category: Autonomous Internet

Below from a team at Rutgers University focused on the same objectives as Next Net, but more structured.

Story about them:

Beyond the Internet: MondoNet, a global wireless mesh network

By Stuart Corner
iwire, Friday, 29 April 2011 16:07

A team from Rutgers University is trying tocreate the next generation version of the Internet, dubbed MondoNet, based on a global mesh of wireless access points that would be resistant to surveillance and state censorship and control.

10 Social Specifications for a Democratized Network

1. Decentralized
2. Universally Accessible
3. Censor-Proof
4. Surveillance-Proof
5. Secure
6. Scalable
7. Permanent
8. Fast (Enough)
9. Independent
10. Evolvable

their vision is pretty much the same idea that's been discussed here… local community solutions first, then becoming regionally interconnected, then go global. then they point out a lot of projects that are being worked on… i think members from many of those groups are here……. and then they cover some of the legal and regulatory questions that have also been posed here….

i'll reach out to them and see if they want to team up with anyone here already working on this stuff.

here's their draft pdf

Why We Need An Open Wireless Movement

Call To Action by Peter Eckersley

If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find.

Stories like the one over the weekend about a bunch of police breaking down an innocent man's door because he happened to leave his network open, as well as general fears about slow networks and online privacy, are convincing many people to password-lock their WiFi routers.

The gradual disappearance of open wireless networks is a tragedy of the commons, with a confusing twist of privacy and security debate. This essay explains why the progressive locking of wireless networks is harmful — for convenience, for privacy and for efficient use of the electromagnetic spectrum.

We will need a political and technological “Open Wireless Movement” to reverse the degradation of this indispensable component of the Internet's infrastructure. Part of the task will simply be reminding people that opening their WiFi is the socially responsible thing to do, and explaining that individuals who choose to do so can enjoy the same legal protections against liability as any other Internet access provider.1 Individuals, including Bruce Schneier and Cory Doctorow, have laid some of the groundwork. It's time to spead the message far and wide.

But an Open Wireless Movement will also need to do technical work: we need to build new technologies to ensure that people have an easy way to share a portion of their bandwidth without affecting the performance of their own network connections while at the same time ensuring that there is absolutely no privacy downside to running an open wireless network.

The wireless world we ought to live in

Read full manifesto….

NEA, in the context of the Internet and computing, is an acronym which stands for the maxim:

No one owns it.

Everyone can use it.

Anyone can improve it.

The maxim originated with the authors Doc Searls and David Weinberger in an essay of 2003 entitled World of Ends. What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else

Source

See Also:

• World of Ends. What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else Doc Searls and David Weinberger – 3 October 2003
• Ten Ideas about Ideas Linux Journal Doc Searls blog on Sat, 2006-11-04