From: hiscdcj@lux.latrobe.edu.au  (Dwayne)
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 93 07:53:18 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: laying our own wires?
Message-ID: <9310011448.AA26371@lux.latrobe.edu.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>> We could lay our own wires/fibers.

>Well, we'd like crypto for the masses and I don't think that the masses are
>yet ready to put out the bucks for spread spectrum boards and infrared laser
>communications gear...  It'd be really nice to have such a decentralized
>network, though.

Sure, the masses wouldn't do it, but how many are needed?
How many users are thereb on the net, compared to how many sites?
All it would take is a dozen or so people in each city, and itt could 
be done. Don't know about intercity stuff, though.

A friend of mine is putting together some ideas regarding what he calls
'punknet', using a bundle of small, solar-powered relays, maybe microwave
links, or infra-red, or short-distance packet radio, whcih could
be manufactured in bulk and stuck all over a city, disguised as bits of
construction, ettc, so tthey would be hard to see, acting as switching devices
so that we could have a completely open and untraceable network within a city.

>> 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.
>> 
>...
>> 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.

Serves me right for not reading through the message first. Yes, this is what
my friend was thinking of.

>This would be the perfect network in which to deploy DC nets....  (dining
>cryptographers).

dining?

Dwayne.
              (Dwayne Jones-Evans  IRC: ddraig  )
     ( SCA: Cynon Yscolan ap Myrddin, Stormhold, Lochac, West)
        PGP public key available. finger me.  be gentle.
           internet---> hiscdcj@lux.latrobe.edu.au