[Commotion-discuss] concerns about the NYT / mo jo mesh articles

[Ben West]

Here is the Mother Jones article being mentioned.  First time I saw it.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/mesh-internet-privacy-nsa-isp

An obvious weakness to this premise of using neighhorhood-wide mesh
networks to preserve privacy is that the underlying reliance on
*wireless*makes the task of eavesdropping just that much easier.  I
believe this is
what Julian Priest was explicitly warning about during his surprise talk at
the Berlin summit last month.

Plus, very few community meshes that provide Internet access are not able
to do much more than the "last mile," meaning they still rely on
conventional telcos in one form or another for their uplinks, just at
somewhat higher levels than individuals.

Better integration of VPN layers could indeed help reduce the vulnerability
to eavesdropping, although that would very likely incur unappealing
performance penalties.  However, there is still the fact you're actively
broadcasting all your data, for any adequately equipped parties (whether
you want them to be or not) to listen in.  This isn't unique, we already do
this compulsively with mobile phones.

I would hope that this current trend of framing community mesh networks as
tools again surveillance doesn't eclipse the parallel motivation of also
building such meshes for economic reasons.  And likewise that it doesn't
distract from the deployment of adhoc meshes during emergencies.



On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Anthony Townsend <amt3 at nyu.edu> wrote:

> i agree - great this is being seen as a movement.
>
> is anyone else disturbed by the trend towards painting this as a potential
> threat to national security? you are all a bunch of renegades trying to
> hide from the NSA?
>
> whether that’s true or not, its an incredibly sensational angle and
> creates the potential for serious backlash. when i read both of these
> articles in my mind i immediately saw Verizon lobbyists descending on
> Trenton with re-prints and legislation blocking mesh networks attached.
>
> maybe I’m paranoid but this reminds me very much of the days when
> NYCwireless were being called “wireless pirates” even though we weren’t
> doing anything illegal. then Philly, then all the steakhouse bans on muni.
>
> maybe this is not the place for it, but just wanted to raise a
> counterpoint to all the high-5ing
>
>
>
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-- 
Ben West
http://gowasabi.net
ben at gowasabi.net
314-246-9434
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