Friday, February 19, 2010
A Longer Wait Then I Expected
This project is still in progress, it's just a bit dormant. The available consumer-level hardware and politics involved in its creation just haven't caught up yet. It's just a matter of time and patience.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Cryptographic Distributed Social Networking (Part 1)
PGP. It sounds like a club drug made for people with baggy pants. However, it's really a crazy cryptosystem made by some guy named Phil in the ancient beginnings of the intertubes. Phil had a good idea, but no one bothers to use it because it's just a pain in the ass to set it up.
It works like this. Each person creates two really big numbers. Not just any numbers however. They're special numbers. You give one of the numbers away to all of your friends and keep the other one hidden under your mattress. Your friend creates another two numbers and gives one to you as well. To actually use the system, you create a message you want to send secretly. Then, you mix up your secret number with the message and finally mix it up again with the number you got from your friend. Now the magic happens. Your friend, and only your friend, can read the message using his secret number and verify that you sent the message using the public number you gave him. Voila.
Now, while this may sound easy to do, no one has really come up with a decent way to copy all of those keys around and pass them out to everyone. It just gets complicated and you really have better things to do then to deal with this crap.
Here's an idea. Everyone and their brother is now on a social networking website. You've all heard of them: Facebook and Myspace being two notable ones.
Lets use this to get everyone on a cryptosystem. Now it won't be PGP, but it's pretty darn close.
Social networking websites work like this (unless you're a crazy person who has 30,000 friends you've never met). First, you create an account. Then, you search for people. If you find someone you know, you "friend" them. This allows you to view their profile, send them messages, poke them, include them in pirate versus ninja wars, etc.
Note the core idea of "friending" someone. What does it take to friend someone in a distributed environment where we don't have the benefit of a centralized server?
We'll leave that question open for next time. :-)
Friday, December 5, 2008
Spectrum Sensing Chaos (and fractals)
There's been some misinformation floating around about how the FCC has mandated that whitespace devices (aka TV Band Devices -- TVBDs) are required to connect to a centralized database to report their position. This is only a partial truth.
Whitespace devices must be able to sense licensed devices which are operating in the same spectrum. However, due to the difficulty of implementing this ability, a centralized database is being created for those devices not able to do so. Once a device has demonstrated through "proof of performance" that it is able to avoid licensed devices (such as wireless microphones in stadiums), the device is no longer required to report to the centralized database.
I do wish the wireless microphone owners (and others using nearby spectrum) would share. This seems to be a nice compromise for now however.
Whitespace devices must be able to sense licensed devices which are operating in the same spectrum. However, due to the difficulty of implementing this ability, a centralized database is being created for those devices not able to do so. Once a device has demonstrated through "proof of performance" that it is able to avoid licensed devices (such as wireless microphones in stadiums), the device is no longer required to report to the centralized database.
I do wish the wireless microphone owners (and others using nearby spectrum) would share. This seems to be a nice compromise for now however.
Bootstrapping Eye Candy
So, you're thinking about buying it. You tell yourself, wow, free worldwide communications with a little box. A one time fee! No monthly subscriptions! Sign me up!
But then it hits you....
...how do I know if my neighbors have one?
...will they ever get one? *sigh*
We need a solution! I propose development of:
The SuperWidgetHitOrMiss 3000 Web Application!
(Note that possible tweaking of the name may occur before the initial public release)
SuperWidgetHitOrMiss 3000 will be on the plain old interweb (the one you're using now). You will type in your location (or a location nearby for the privacy nerds out there) and it'll give you a nifty map back showing nearby mesh devices and their estimated range (note that all initial whitespace devices are required by the FCC to contain GPS).
No more chicken and the egg. We just bought a henhouse! (or something like that...)
Anyway, now you can see if your neighbors are as crazy as you are. Problem solved! You can go and grab a brand spankin' new whitespace device, or you can wait until it spreads to your neighborhood.
On that note, how about a system that notifies you when it's available...
This thing is designing itself!
Update: meshweb is born!
But then it hits you....
...how do I know if my neighbors have one?
...will they ever get one? *sigh*
We need a solution! I propose development of:
The SuperWidgetHitOrMiss 3000 Web Application!
(Note that possible tweaking of the name may occur before the initial public release)
SuperWidgetHitOrMiss 3000 will be on the plain old interweb (the one you're using now). You will type in your location (or a location nearby for the privacy nerds out there) and it'll give you a nifty map back showing nearby mesh devices and their estimated range (note that all initial whitespace devices are required by the FCC to contain GPS).
No more chicken and the egg. We just bought a henhouse! (or something like that...)
Anyway, now you can see if your neighbors are as crazy as you are. Problem solved! You can go and grab a brand spankin' new whitespace device, or you can wait until it spreads to your neighborhood.
On that note, how about a system that notifies you when it's available...
This thing is designing itself!
Update: meshweb is born!
Friday, November 21, 2008
This is my vision.
The network will consist of a device in your home with a power plug. The following steps will be required to set it up. Make sure you read the directions twice so you don't mess up:
Follow the step above, then just hide the box in a corner somewhere and forget about it. The next time you use your computer, you'll be connected to anyone in the world who also has this device. You'll have one, and your neighbors will have one.
That's it. It'll give you something very similar to the internet you use now. In fact, you'll even be able to use the web browser you use now.
No monthly fees. No subscriptions. Buy it once (less than $100) and forget about it.
In the beginning, you'll be limited to a connection of about 20Mbit/sec. That'll quickly rise up to 100Mbit/sec and beyond. To put things into perspective, I currently pay about $60 USD per month for a 1Mbit connection.
I intend to make this available within 5 years. I do not expect any personal gain other than the knowledge that I've changed the world.
For all of the computer nerds out there, I have a plan for this. It's not just a dream. It's going to happen sooner or later. With the advent of the FCC's ruling to allow unlicensed whitespace use, and routing programs such as netsukuku, this concept will be feasible in roughly 18 months. This is assuming the rumors about Motorola's time frame to release new consumer level devices using the fresh, juicy, delicious, spectrum are true.
I plan on bootstrapping the network in areas with young professionals. Soon the network may attract the interest of other non-profits who will see the network as a way to bridge the digital divide in impoverished areas with limited access to the internet. It may attract the attention of corporations in larger cities who may initially use the network to communicate within the city.
It will spread. Get ready. :)
- Plug it in.
Follow the step above, then just hide the box in a corner somewhere and forget about it. The next time you use your computer, you'll be connected to anyone in the world who also has this device. You'll have one, and your neighbors will have one.
That's it. It'll give you something very similar to the internet you use now. In fact, you'll even be able to use the web browser you use now.
No monthly fees. No subscriptions. Buy it once (less than $100) and forget about it.
In the beginning, you'll be limited to a connection of about 20Mbit/sec. That'll quickly rise up to 100Mbit/sec and beyond. To put things into perspective, I currently pay about $60 USD per month for a 1Mbit connection.
I intend to make this available within 5 years. I do not expect any personal gain other than the knowledge that I've changed the world.
For all of the computer nerds out there, I have a plan for this. It's not just a dream. It's going to happen sooner or later. With the advent of the FCC's ruling to allow unlicensed whitespace use, and routing programs such as netsukuku, this concept will be feasible in roughly 18 months. This is assuming the rumors about Motorola's time frame to release new consumer level devices using the fresh, juicy, delicious, spectrum are true.
I plan on bootstrapping the network in areas with young professionals. Soon the network may attract the interest of other non-profits who will see the network as a way to bridge the digital divide in impoverished areas with limited access to the internet. It may attract the attention of corporations in larger cities who may initially use the network to communicate within the city.
It will spread. Get ready. :)
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