more than spread spectrum

[cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison)]

There are alternatives to spread spectrum, if we're threatened with
loss of freedom to communicate.

We could lay our own wires/fibers.

We could set up a mesh network of infrared lasers through the air.  Last
time I looked, there were no laws against shining lights out your window as
long as they didn't bother anyone.  An infrared laser could hardly bother
anyone.

We could produce a line of cheap cards to plug into a PC which would do
packet routing, using a variety of physical links -- our own wires, lasers,
very low range radio, ....  Each card would connect to three or more
neighbors and become part of the global mesh.  Adaptive routing with no
global map would suffice for the card and would keep the whole system
peer-to-peer with no need for central control and no chance for central
tapping.

Of course all of these solutions require a high density of users.  A
college campus might be the right place to start.  We could then branch out
to cities.  I suspect that a place like Chicago or NYC with high rise
apartments might be the place to start -- many options for line-of-sight
communications.


The benefit isn't just for Cypherpunks.  It's a free network for the masses
-- like the original USENET (with each user donating routing and
store/forward) but with unrestricted, low-range, continuously operating
physical links.


I'll volunteer to do the software for the node card.  Does anyone have
hardware design/fab to donate to the effort?

 - Carl