Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 01:08 AM 1/3/96 -700, you wrote:

>All of this is assuming that the bandwidth is available on the airwaves to
>handle ~200 ~T1s.  (If we're talking $200.00/mo. for T1, sign me up tomorrow,
>and my neighbor, and his, and hers, and...  *poof* no more bandwidth in a
>"decently" populated metro area or even a downtown.  (Back of the envelope
>calculations show that ~200 T1 ~= 1 TV station [although I might be off by an
>order of magnitude.])
>
>I apologize if this is off topic, but the crypto part still applies (moreso,
>even!) to broadcast over the airwaves.  (Besides, I'm sure that this list has
>enough subscribers that are shelling out $200-$500/mo. for 56K/Frac T1/ISDN
>that they'd be interested in a less expensive alternative.)
>Steve@AZTech.Net


To a certain extent, I think this is (or should be!) VERY MUCH "on topic."
If our goal is to allow/assist privacy, we need to start actually
anticipating technological developments so that we can do "minor course
corrections" that will end up guaranteeing unbreakable security.  One of
these is by routing data through organizations (NOT THE PHONE CO!) that
won't tend to kow-tow to the wishes of the government.  We know that if this
telephone-company bypass is done, it can either be done "right" (from a
cypherpunks standpoint; so that it's including encryption, etc) or "wrong."
If we don't plan ahead, it will almost certainly be done "wrong."   Witness
the fact that the vast majority of modems contain no encryption standard,
for example.  If USR or somebody else had mandated it in 1982 with 2400 bps
modems, we might all be talking on encrypted lines already.

And as you pointed out, this is especially important if RF is the
medium-of-choice for connections.  We should definitely make a serious
amount of contact with people working on the PCS standards to ensure that
GOOD encryption is included.