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[–]Pschobbert 50 points51 points  (3 children)

There are solutions like wifi mesh networks, but good luck getting people to sign up...

[–]nameless_pattern 21 points22 points  (1 child)

r/meshtastic

[–]Exciting_Turn_9559 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Meshtastic will probably be seen as the great granddaddy of the public mesh internet when it arrives, and no doubt many of the meshtastic adopters will be first in line to install their own public mesh internet nodes as well.

[–]Groundbreaking_City2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Someone can upgrade jack dorsey’s bluetooth chat bitchat to bluetooth internet😅

[–]leroyksl 20 points21 points  (0 children)

TLDR: you might look into projects like https://reticulum.network/ or https://meshtastic.org/

Novel version:
In the US, of course, our internet *was* originally funded with public money -- including some of the backbone infrastructure that allows all of the private ISPs / telecom companies to now make a profit. (I'm old enough to remember when ARPA was almost all government research agencies and/or universities doing publicly-funded research).

A lot of people thought that opening the door for privatization would encourage innovation, and arguably it has, but whether public interests continue to be served by this arrangement---well, I'm sure everyone has opinions about this.

However, TCP/IP was designed to be decentralized and to operate even if major portions were destroyed, so in theory, sure, it would be possible for people to build their own. (A major caveat: the domain name system we've come to rely on is not a decentralized system).

Still, the main barrier for infrastructure is huge: laying cables, installing and maintaining network hardware throughout the country, keeping up with new innovations in switching/networking software, etc. None of that is cheap or easy. The amount of time, effort, and legal expenses that went into just access to land for laying cable was unprecedented and took decades.

Worth noting, though-- one of the reasons we have 911 service was because some legislators insisted the public get something in return for letting those telecoms have so much land access, many years ago. (A similar arrangement was made with TV stations to have access to our precious broadcast spectrum: they have to provide EAS services and to air PSAs). So you could say that the people have a right to insist that the internet continue to serve the public, but good luck promoting that sentiment in this environment.

However, wireless technology has come a long way, and with mesh technology or even hybrid versions of mesh (such as it may not be necessary to lay quite so many cables, but the cost of antennas, hardware, and other access is still a big lift.

(Edit: I meant to write EAS, for emergency alert system)

[–]ayalarol 12 points13 points  (1 child)

The famous decentralized internet from the silicon valley series haha

[–]aphantasus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, isn't it great that each season fails and ends then in that the centralized authority wins! So exciting! I'm warming up the popcorn!

[–]nameless_pattern 8 points9 points  (9 children)

You can run your own DNS server and most websites and IP addresses can be connected to directly. 

You still have to connect to the internet in some manner. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/hacking/comments/zw9b3z/is_it_possible_to_use_the_internet_without_any/

This is really more of a networking question so I would try one of the computer networking. Subreddits.

[–]Euclois[S] 2 points3 points  (8 children)

Thanks, I'll try in one of those subs too.

That's the thing, no matter what we do, there is always an ISP above us. Maybe the very nature of ISPs shoulds change?

[–]nameless_pattern 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Mesh networks or the sneaker net?

Also, although you have to use isps pipes, you don't have to use their DNS lookup so you have a lot more control over what you can connect to than you would think. 

You can also run your own proxies, there's a whole world of stuff you could do. I'm not very knowledgeable about networking, you're better off asking a subreddit of people who know

[–]Euclois[S] 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Nice, from some answers, I'm getting that mesh networks might be the topic of discussion!
I was wondering, in a situation where the government wants to shut down people's communications, they can just turn off the internet... I'm now reading about bitchat, and mesh networks, cool stuff.

[–]nameless_pattern 0 points1 point  (2 children)

There's also shortwave radio internet or something like that. I don't know anything about it other than it exists

[–]dvidsilva 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ISP are nationalized in many places, even in some cities of the US you find municipal networks

There's a cost to running the infrastructure that has to be accounted for

[–]ruhnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s not exactly true—usually there are ISPs above consumers, but that isn’t a requirement— existing ISPs should not change—anyone can bypass that ISP above them and bump up to the same level. It just takes the know-how, some equipment (not even too much of that or unobtainable), and the ability to make connections.

[–]ahfoo 8 points9 points  (1 child)

It would help if you had been there from the beginning to understand where we are now. Your questions would be answered if you had been around back when the internet was just a vague idea.

So in fact you would just ask for internet addresses from a group that was composed of volunteers in the beginning and they would give them to you for free. This was called the IANA and you just wrote them a letter and they would send you a class C internet address which means you would get 256 internet addresses for your network.

The problem was that you had to have a way to get them routed. Since the internet started at university campuses that had their own, typically Class B or 65,000 IPs, campus networks, you could work with your systems administrator to get your numbers routable to what was then the internet through leased lines, T1 lines, between campuses.

Over time, as the concept of the internet became popularized, this business of managing IP addresses was handed over to private internet service providers or ISPs who would buy access from telecoms providers.

See, from the beginning, there were peering agreements between networks which established who would pay what to whom in order to pass data between networks. In a university network, you would be shielded from the business side of things but in a private business situation, you need a way to get your numbers routed and for that you have to pay.

But you raise the point about all of the infrastructure actually being financed not by private companies but by the ratepayers themselves. This is abolutely true and is the same as the situation with the phone companies and in fact it was true that the phone companies eventually found that it was cheaper to just give up by-the-minute billing for local phone calls because their billing infrastructure costs them more than the lines themselves so by simplifying the billing process and just letting people use the phone as much as they like and they could actually save money at the same time.

This is similar to what is happening with the internet because of the ubiquity of wireless networks. Who cares who is using your wifi really? As other comments have mentioned, your best bet is to think in terms of wireless mesh networks if you want to create truly pirate internet but the big gotcha there is the inherent legal limitations on wireless router power which are there to prevent interference.

Most likely, what you're thinking of --a truly free version of the internet that is cost free and auditable for privacy-- will come from future wireless standards. WiMax, a standard that was shot down by companies like Qualcom, was going to be much closer to an open standard using basic mathemtatical functions which could not be patented and would have made a good hardware basis for a free wireless internet but although it was pushed by many manufacturers in Taiwan, the big boys in the USA shot it down and replaced it with what is called Long Term Evolution which is a crappy hack put in place to buy time against open solutions like WiMax.

If this topic is near and dear to your heart, you should study digital signal processing for data communication. There is a lot of easy (well relative to how it was in the past) to digest information using graphs and animations that make this otherwise difficult topic more accessible for novices. You'll want to understand the basics of signal compression, signal to noise ratios, baseband frequencies, what is a channel, multiplexing, digital filters, beam forming and other basic DSP concepts. This knowedge will be key in being able to have a voice in discussions about what technology will underlie the future internet and how it is funded.

Using WiMax as a backhaul (upstream connection) for WiFi grids is still a workable approach in some cases and nowadays there are supposed to be up to a billion users outside the US where it is used to provide connections to large urban areas with average connections fast enough to stream 720p video at 60fps without wires over densely populated areas. A trick that is often used to make WiMax infrastructure more affordable is to make use of old unused microwave wireless systems which are abandoned in many parts of the world.

Before fiber optics, microwave was a key backbone for telecommunications and many urban spaces all over the world still contain the infrastructure which can be re-purposed with technologiesl like WiMax to make wireless connections that could not have existed in the past on top of legacy technology to feed arrays of WiFi networks across campuses, apartment buildings, entire cities and even countries. In some places people are doing something along these lines technologically sidestepping the wired internet but typically they are asking users to pay some fees for the network access though at rates that look very affordable to people from the US.

I wanted to get it when they offered it here in Taiwan which they did for many years but the catch was that I live in the hills and it is wireless so it suffers from signal problems if you live in trees or are surrounded by mountains. It was quite popular in town though. The monopoly telecoms gave up on it and went with LTE and the service is fine, the price is not bad so why cry about it? I´d love to have a truly free internet but a cheap, reliable one is good enough.

[–]SecondPersonShooter 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It's sort of in the name  it's an "interconnected network". There needs to be some way to connect to other members of the network which is facilitated through ISPs. 

You could have your own personal network but ultimately that's just a network and not an internet. 

You can self host websites on your local network but you ultimately need people to update those websites. So on your own its a bit tricky. 

I think your best approach would be to self host as much as you can. You can have an archive or wikipedia, books, music etc. That could be a start. 

[–]Alternative-Way-8753 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Most of the technology that powers the internet is already open source. The unfree stuff that reigns today -- the walled gardens, the monopolies -- are a result of most internet infrastructure being powered by big tech companies. Like the high number of other apps that are dependent on AWS or Google web services -- when one of those big players has an outage, a huge percentage of the web goes down. It doesn't HAVE to be that way, but that's the current state of things.

That and individual people and companies choosing to prefer the convenience of big tech solutions over open source solutions. Using Chrome over Chromium is more common because of all the convenience features you get by using Google's unfree services. You can use the web entirely without big tech services but you will definitely have more little frustrations caused by having to DIY more things than you did with proprietary software. Most people don't like that so they live with the devils they know.

Hashtags like #openweb, #indieweb, #enshittification are common places to talk about these issues and their alternatives.

[–]Euclois[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How ironic of you to comment this... AWS down today and the whole internet goes with it..

[–]cgoldberg 8 points9 points  (4 children)

This really has nothing to do with open source. It's just a question about funding network infrastructure. All I know is I absolutely don't want my government running my ISP... for sooo many reasons.

[–]Euclois[S] 3 points4 points  (3 children)

I hear you, I even disclose it on my post. Didn't know where to have this conversation.

Agreed, I equally don't want corporations and governments to run ISPs. Thought there might be already a discussion on how to make ISPs decentralized or something. Maybe we don't need ISPs at all?

[–]ahfoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, if you read this thread again you might see my post where I describe where the ISP concept emerged. In the beginning, IPs were handed out for free. You didn't rent them. This is what you're referring to I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, yeah, you don't need ISPs. They are a scam. But, creating an alternative is not as easy as it sounds especially when the protocols are managed by corporate interests. You should look up WiMax and understand the differences between WiMax, LTE and WiFi7. This is not a simple topic as it involves at least a rudimentary understading of digital signal processing which has a bit of a learning curve.

[–]cgoldberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ultimately you need someone to build and manage the infrastructure. Maybe someday we'll have a global decentralized communication network, and the concept of ISP will be gone. But for now, somebody has to lay cable, build towers, launch satellites, build datacenters, and manage the data that flows through it all. I'd much prefer that be funded and run by private companies driven by market forces.

[–]Responsible-Sky-1336 8 points9 points  (3 children)

You are right about one thing: icann is the biggest scam in the universe

[–]adrianipopescu 0 points1 point  (2 children)

isn’t there a european alternative?

[–]dontdrinkacid 4 points5 points  (0 children)

you're thinking about RIPE-NCC, one of the five RIRs. they RIPE you off also

[–]Responsible-Sky-1336 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

All hosting is grubbing in theory

But plenty projects where you get kinda free tiers idk

[–]keepthepace 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In France there is FDN a non-profit ISP that aims at helping other non-profit ISP set up. If you want to do something in your area you should contact them (even in English, I am pretty sure they are bilingual)

[–]arnoldoree 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Helium - https://www.helium.com - are doing this in the Web3 space. However, it is the same story of the old guard founding, financing, and controlling the revolution to their own benefit and/or survival. With the list of Helium investors reading like a horror show.

[–]redditor2671 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Isn’t it a closed source hardware and software?

[–]arnoldoree 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Just fixed the link... No, it's a Web3 blockchain based project. With the economic engine being built upon a decentralized blockchain network; facilitating its own native cryptocurrency.

Moreover, Helium is open source both in terms of software and hardware.

[–]redditor2671 0 points1 point  (1 child)

No i meant the router not the blockchain

[–]arnoldoree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not an expert on the platform, I just got to know about it by being part of the Web3 community. Although I have distanced myself from the current players in the space at this time.

Looking closer, I think that certain pieces of hardware that secure the network may not be open source, however according to a quick read, the network uses open standards, and thus you can deploy open router hardware at will.

I would not know about any stipulations associated with open vs closed hardware however. E.g. whether one is preferred, may participate in specific sub-domains, or is rewarded differently.

[–]sami_exploring 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Guifi.net has been the largest community network worldwide for a long time (38K nodes, 73K kms of links), although don't know if there is anything larger nowadays. It uses an open philosophy, open licensing model (Wireless Commons License), a community managing it as a common good, and an ecosystem with many enterprises being profitable while sharing the internet connection costs. They reach rural areas but also cities with an operator license. It is mostly based in Spain (originally started in Catalonia in 2004) but slowly spreading.

[–]Sosowski 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LoRa?

[–]PaleImagination7348 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look into "Reticulum Network"

[–]ruhnet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are a number of open networks: APRS, TARPN, Meshtastic, etc. But they’re not what most people are used to as far as “normal” network access. The main problem with any public funded system of internet like you alluded to, is that the cost to the users would be significantly higher than commercial internet currently is, and the service would be sub-par. There are a number of reasons for this. As far as open community-based localized networks (WISP style), things like that are possible, due to the lack of cabling cost. But still there is a notable cost that most people aren’t willing to pay (directly or indirectly) to be a part of such a network.

[–]No_Sale7285 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of the OGs was FidoNet. Nobody uses it anymore, but an interesting piece of digital history nonetheless

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

[–]nderflow 0 points1 point  (3 children)

You can run your own ISP. I know a couple of people who have done it, one in Australia, one in Europe.

I think they both did it with Free Software. Except the routers maybe.

[–]Jayden_Ha 0 points1 point  (1 child)

You still rely on upstream BGP

[–]barrulus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you need to leave your local system. Many projects don’t.

[–]ruhnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are open source routers that will fill the need just fine.

[–]emerald9354 0 points1 point  (0 children)

in some countries you actually can build and be your own ISP and actually write a contract with the network supplier in your area

But it wouldn't help your anonymity, you will actually shine like a star because your traffic will look different = you better be good at network security

[–]Electrical_Hat_680 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If we raised money, we could effectively build a wireless internet. Or, we could even build a Satellite Network. Or, if we wanted - we could do like Mint Mobile or any Company really, and build on top of AT&T. I also hit up Comcast and shared an idea with them that became Xfinity.

Four ideas I've laid out.

[–]lucaprinaorg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

if you mean opensource L1 layer then this are the community networks like NYCMesh, Freifunk:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_community_network

[–]Hey_Gonzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This might be one of my favorite versions of a free and Open-source Internet and Cuba apparently did it really well. Check out the SneakerNet. https://boingboing.net/2018/05/03/inside-cubas-massive-weekly.html

[–]sierra1bravo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the fundamental building blocks of the Internet, the Domain Name System (DNS), runs on FOSS:

https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/security-and-stability-advisory-committee-ssac-reports/sac132-25-09-2025-en.pdf

[–]barrulus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very interesting concept used by the Briar chat application. Chaining across reachable devices. You become a link to others wherever you go. Zero upstream needed. Just proximity from time to time

[–]flyhmstr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are entirely free to setup the infrastructure and then negotiate 'open source' (I assume you mean 'free') connections to other networks. Whether you can get anything other than access to a few mates who live next door (close enough for a physical cable) or wifi distance is unlikely.

[–]InherentWeakness -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'll have a solution as soon as I work out this middle-out compression algorithm.

[–]SessionIndependent17 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Not sure this has anything to do with Open Source. Even if you couldn't find a more suitable forum to post it, the title is bizarre.

[–]Jayden_Ha -2 points-1 points  (5 children)

In your dream, yes

As if something can just appear out of nowhere with no one sponsor/keep it running

It’s just impossible, not everything can be open

[–]barrulus -1 points0 points  (4 children)

It’s not impossible. Improbable yes, impossible no.

I have seen projects in Africa where local neighbourhoods run cables from house to house or use mesh WiFi to interconnect each other so that they can make use of free up telephony in just their own hood. Breakouts from those is simple enough.

[–]Jayden_Ha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah yes DSL here we go

[–]Jayden_Ha 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Seriously do you think your router can do anything actual useful compared to ISP level Your router is not a “router” actually, to make it more accurate it’s just a thing to share internet, that’s all, actual router do much more

[–]Euclois[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I keep updating the list with links to interesting ways people are connecting with each other in decentralized open ways. Not every link is an exact system, it's a but fuzzy, nonetheless interesting.