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welcome to this session and to this talk
um hun Kristoff Steiner is going to uh
give you a talk on wind uh off-grid
services for everyday people and it will
be a network related talk and I'm very
happy to welcome him on stage give him a
warm hand of
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
Applause thank you um so uh I will be
talking about
uh our project wind which you just said
about really our work over the last
sevenish years about integrating
offline connectivity with kind of nearby
networking into the internet and making
that something that you can use
transparently um I'll give a little uh
overview of some kind of randomly chosen
or not so randomly chosen uh historical
precedents that I think are inform this
whole discussion talk about some of the
work that well a lot of the work that
we've done and other examples um that
have presented on been presented at
Congress and other places and um also
hopefully Inspire everyone here who
works on software of any kind uh maybe
even Hardware to um also think about uh
nearby and offline networks and how to
integrated into what um what you're
making um so uh this work is kind of
Under the Umbrella of the Guardian
Project uh we are a free software
project focused on privacy in Mobile U
we we make
uh that
means um when we do software development
we started with the idea that we want to
make apps where uh privacy comes first
we don't want to compromise at all on
privacy um as in the whole process um
includ so that means you know we haven't
become rich and famous because we've
opted for Grants rather than VC money
and things like this
um one central idea for us is that uh
that that the design the usability of
software um does not uh is not in in
conflict with privacy but really
actually an essential uh part of
delivering software that is actually uh
secure and private um if people don't
understand what they're doing then
they're much more likely uh uh to make a
mistake and and if you uh design things
in a way that it's e they have to the
user has to choose between the dangerous
button and the safe button right next to
each other then then that can cause a
lot of problems um so Central to our
design um process is really thinking
about user experience so this
is instead of say saying
um you know the user didn't understand
it we need to write a manual better we
need to teach them better we say no we
need to make it so that the software
matches the people's expectations we
need to present it in a way that the
expectations are clear um and this means
a lot of talking to people a lot of uh
iterations and a lot of trial and
error um so uh Guardian Project
specifically
focuses the users we focus on um are
from activists and C citizen journalists
um and human rights Defenders people
anything from like election monitors etc
etc um we are often called upon to help
uh inform software that's used in
businesses or or or business people are
who travel use use our software
um and Frontline reporters
um and uh one but really you know so the
core mission was we really want to make
privacy and and and these kind of things
uh uh something for everybody uh and
we've kind of
found this Niche where we can um work in
partnership with all sorts of
organizations uh who want who will give
us money to focus on these people like
uh human rights activists uh and that we
develop free software and we tried to
push it out there in ways that it can be
reused both in terms of free software
libraries uh so that you can incorporate
that into your um into your apps uh but
also in terms of design research design
patterns and things like this um so
these are just a bunch um some of the
not all but some of the
Partnerships uh these are you know a lot
of these organizations represent say the
target user that and and so whenever
we're designing software we're always
working in conjunction with directly
with people who are have strong privacy
concerns that we're trying to address uh
and other you know accessibility and we
also um always try to find you know if
there's already a free for software
project out there doing an essential
part of what we're doing we would much
rather try to support another free
software Community than invented oursel
so this means we have to do a lot more
talking as well but
um so that's part of coming to an event
like this is to say okay you know where
where are the parts that we all can work
together and make something
better
um
yeah so I should also mentioned that you
know I I kind of wear me many hats in in
this is the I pay my bills usually
through officially Guardian Project but
I but the way we work is that we uh we
often do a lot of the work just because
we think it's important I'm also a
Debian uh developer I'm also uh core
team of fdroid and other things like
this um things that don't necessarily
pay the bills but be because we have
some funding here means we can also have
time to focus on on things that
integrate into the whole thing and are
also really important so
networks um so everyone's familiar with
the internet and the internet is
uh now on our phones and in our pockets
all the time uh and I think more and
more people are forgetting that there
used to be lots of lots of all sorts of
kinds of networks out there uh and that
I think it's so I wanted to highlight a
couple that were influential to me and
also just to point out that you know
there's there's things we can we can
learn from them because some of these
ideas people think well that's crazy to
build a system like this that you know
it's too hard well and you can look back
and say well actually this was working
pretty well not so long ago um who who
here has heard of
phonet some okay phonet is probably my
yeah is my real my first exposure to
anything like a network uh what it is
quite simply was uh back in the days
when you know connecting to a network
was a modem um and dialing into
something um there was a thing called a
BBS it was basically a on stop I mean it
was one computer that lots of people
could call into and you could exchange
you know you could chat you could find
files things like this uh so a bunch of
people figur out well you know if we
want to exchange data to across the
country that's a very expensive phone
call but I can call make a local call
for
free uh or cheaper and then that person
that BBS can make another local call and
it can and then we can have a Global
Network that's actually affordable um
and and uh that's this phonet
spanned um a large part of the world I
mean it went from us to Bulgaria uh I
think a little bit into South America um
and just you know organized by people
who wanted to be able to send little
emails and things like this
um then uh for me one that's near and
dear in my heart anyone ever used beam
beaming apps and and palm Pilots all so
this is something I think is quite
important this is like it has the idea
of uh offline nearby networks built in
from the beginning uh anything
in as far as I remember like the you
know if you you had an app you could
beam an app to someone else you be like
hey here's this app you want this app uh
and you point the devices and made a
little noise um you could also Beam
contacts and things like this and it it
actually worked pretty well and it was
just based on like the same little
infrared as a TV remote control and and
I think that it worked because of the
technology was there but this more
importantly I think is that they got it
smooth enough
and this kind of interaction we already
talking about like oh give me your card
or pull out your thing and pull out your
pom pilot and point them at each other
was already kind of plugging into an
existing human
behavior uh so it wasn't telling people
to do some totally new weird thing
um one thing that's getting a lot
of uh media attention right now is uhet
semal the weekly package in
Cuba uh which is
really pretty amazing network of
couriers moving hard drives around Cuba
um what it is is uh is someone
either um goes to a country that has
highspeed
internet or they have through some
Source they get it on on Cuba so for for
people who don't know most of Cuba
doesn't really have internet access and
the internet access that available is
extremely expensive so people have
figured out this thing well they just
buy a hard drive and they fill it up
with ebooks movies all sorts of things
apps games uh and then someone brings it
into uh Cuba they have a whole network
of this Network that's of people who
talk to each other meet up and they
physically exchange these hard drives so
someone says I got the new weekly packet
you go you have your weekly packet store
you know someone that gets who gets it
from someone you go make your copy then
people say Okay I want to get apps they
go to the weekly packet store they pay a
little money you get some time on the
hard drive copy what you need um and
this covers Cuba quite
well um and there is no actual there's
no wireless network there's no uh
there's no wired networking it is people
moving hard drives
around um and and talking to each other
and um and agreeing
um and I mean so this was has often been
kind of dered as a sneaker net uh which
is something near and dear to us the uh
and something as a last resort um but it
turns out that sneakernet is still the
fastest way way to transmit data so
Amazon has a service where if you have a
lot of data and you want to move to
Amazon they drive a
truck they drive a truck to your to your
data center and they plug it in and you
load it
up um and this is an exabyte of data and
I mean I I don't know all the exact
details but something like an internet
for one example case it would have taken
26 years to do it over the internet
and it took them six months with this
thing um so it's just really a truck
full of wired hard
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drives
um and
then uh I feel like so this is more I
feel like mesh is is fading a little bit
so this is something that was there was
quite a bit of activity maybe 10 years
ago um of people building DIY networks
that can build the
uh figure out how to route data through
them by um kind of on their own and
that's the core idea of a mesh Network
um and so this specific map is uh the
Guffy Network in uh
Catalonia um you can see like the that
is Barcelona where the mouse pointer
thing is uh but so it covers quite a
large area I think it's 10,000 nodes um
and to this it's provided actually uh
relatively highspeed networks in a place
where the the local telecom companies
haven't really been interested for
whatever reason uh in doing it
um and uh there's
let's there's actually a kind of
a it's kind of a hard thing so the you
know this
is built by and set up by mon uh whole
lot of volunteers and that's takes a lot
of uh people's time and Technical
ability
uh and what often happens in the in
cases like this is that
then uh they've done the hard work of
actually proving that people want the
internet and maybe we even give some
money to it um to support it and then
the companies often come in and be like
oh look that's a market waiting for us
and then and these things go away uh
there's another recent I just learned
about it um yesterday I mean the well
the outcome but there's a telecom in
Eastern Nicaragua called
Cel a very similar idea kind of DIY
Community Based effort because the the
local telecoms were not interested in
eastern Nicaragua at all um they set it
up got it working and then they Telecom
saw oh wait people will actually pay for
telom service there and then they of
course then set up a giant lots of
towers and put tale out of business
um and of course the internet itself
started as an offline Network that was
you know 1970 that was the internet that
was all of it
um and it it this was you know built
node by node starting you know when they
first turned it on it was two or three
computers talking to each other and bit
by bit it was built out into what we
have now um and on top of that you know
so that that was a uh
us uh defense Department really funded
effort uh but then lots of things
started kind of bed on top of that so
uset which is still alive and uh kicking
today and uh is a fascinating idea
of how to
move uh so it's basically like
forums um and it's all organized by
topics and um in but when it was created
the the internet was not really
available and and people wanted to say
well we want to use this this these
digital media uh we don't have access to
the internet how can we do this uh so
similar to something like phonet this is
computers calling each other syncing up
data uh and and what you get basically
is
this so someone you you like a
university will have a complete copy of
you uset and then you can connect to
them whichever is the closest to you and
say well I'm only interested in this
much of it and sync with them and then
and then it syncing includes your
putting your responses back in that
University takes your response and then
forwards it to every other connection
and and it spans the world um in these
uh asynchronous kind of bit by- bit
connections going in every direction
um
and uh a very a more recent one which to
me I is such a clever hack both
politically and technically uh it's
called touche in it's Target it's
basically about getting around uh
internet blocking in in Iran has anyone
heard of
touche no guess not um so it turns out
that so the Iran often blocks aspect
aspects of the internet
um satellite TV is very popular in Iran
but the satellites are all operated by I
believe UAE the United Arab
and they don't those countries don't get
along so that is a they they re the
people who put tou shet together
recognize oh this is an opportunity for
us because ultimately a satellite is a
video is just
bits uh and it turns out it's a standard
format it's MPEG format bits so uh
there's no one checking that your bits
actually are a nice pretty playable
video um so touche is a system where
they have a cable channel on a satellite
run by the UA that's targeted in uh it's
available in Iran uh on one of the on
the main satellites that uh Iranians use
to get television um and if you
subscribe to it and uh you basically a
lot of these little satellite boxes you
can download to a USB thumb drive so you
can just download stream data to it and
then they have a little app that
extracts just like you know unzipping a
file but it's taking data out of uh MP4
um so this to me the whole thing is
just I don't such a crazy hack that that
works that I I found it very uh
inspirational
so so then why why do we now really uh
want to think about incorporating
offline and nearby networks like you
know there's all these things before
that was the only way or there was there
was a direct need and now it feels like
well it's so easy for much so much of
the world to just get stuff on the
internet
um companies like like Google have
really pushed this idea that look they
can provide always connected services
and you know when they when you're
always connected then they can run these
huge servers and have these insane
indexes and all this stuff that you
can't do in a or no one's been able to
do in a decentralized way so you know
the the they so invested in this model
of always connected internet everywhere
they're flying balloons um Facebook as
well you know they have their idea of
putting drones up to beam internet
always connected to Internet around the
world um and to me this I I'm I've
always been very fascinated in the
history of U computers and the internet
and it reminds me of a one I think often
overlooked but very important story in
the um in the uh in the roots of the
internet and and Computing uh and that
is uh a lot of this stuff like the
internet was H was being built around
when the Vietnam War was uh being fought
and while we usually think of uh like a
lot you know oh the internet was a bunch
of hippies making internet access or
information available for
free that that there was that that was
happening at the same time the people
who actually were funding this the
people in charge of the defense dep us
defense department funding had a very
different idea their idea was about well
if we have a nuclear war prooof Network
that spans all everything then we can
have the most efficient centralized
command control possible we can build a
network
where every all we have people taking
care of everything and then when it'll
be so efficient that the president can
actually decide who which person to
shoot will they just be able to flip on
a monitor and the airplane will be
flying in the air and the president gets
to pull the trigger this is this is this
is really this is not a madeup story
this is really part of what they were
thinking about
um one of the things that they did so in
in that time so around 1970 the largest
computer in the world was in Thailand
um because they had built a network all
up through Vietnam um and uh LA and
Cambodia uh where the hoim in tril was
this is where the Vietnamese brought
weapons from the north down to the South
to fight um so they there would they had
this idea we'll just build a network
over the whole thing we'll wire up
sensors and video cameras and audio
sensors and then we'll know where every
everything that's happening on
this uh on this Trail
uh and then when we want to uh you know
blow up some truck or something there
you there you go the The General can sit
there and be like that one and we'll
have perfect knowledge um and uh that
and um so huge amounts of money largest
computer in the world they built this
system and it was reporting all these
statistics about all the things that
they have killed and blown up um here
they have a nice map of all the places
that that were um targeted via this
system um and then after a
while someone tallied all the numbers
that they had of all the trucks and
airplanes and everything that they
people they had killed with this and
they realized that it was much larger
than any of the estimates from the
Departments who just were trying to
estimate the size of the military and
then in after the war you can now see
this in the in in museums in Vietnam the
Vietnamese had figured out oh here's a
microphone and when it hears a truck
someone shoots at it so they just played
recordings of
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trucks uh so this this was really they
had centralized command and control they
built this amazing infrastructure
internet up on the whole you know in
this Royal thing in a war um and they
were victims of their own information
bubble
um
so more directly what why do we need uh
offline and nearby networks well what we
have is is centralized very and getting
seems to me even more so um and it in
some places in many places of the world
it's very fragile and pretty much any
place in the world it can be fragile
when it's surprising times um I worked
in lower Manhattan during September 11th
there was no internet no phones no cell
your phones for weeks there was no power
there were power lines this big in the
street uh so this this can happen you
know in the middle of New York
City uh in a lot of the world it's
expensive um it's getting you know
easier and easier to censor it uh it is
everyone knows it's being surveilled in
so many ways um and
and of course it's lots of people are
trying to push it to not be um not be
neutral like have to prefer certain
Services over
others so uh it's also not evenly
distributed um so this is a map of of
the world where uh based on um percentag
of people using the internet uh very un
distributed um and so part of why that
is well it turns out that it's quite
expensive in certain parts of the world
uh and often in those parts of the world
um where people don't make a lot of
money um so really I mean affordability
is a huge uh block to getting on the
internet in a lot of places
um I mean this is something that
Facebook has figured out with
internet.org program they basically
figured out that you know it's worth it
to them to pay for the internet bills
for people around the world to access
Facebook uh but of course they don't pay
for the internet internet bills as a
whole just accessing Facebook um there's
even I mean another example of a project
that we worked on um so in the US the
there are large parts of the US where
people are that uh do not have coverage
um for for example Farms a lot of large
farming areas and so we worked with a
group of um representing Farm Workers in
Georgia um the
um we were helping them track uh the
work that they did so they could get
paid fairly uh and for the most part um
they did not have access to the to
mobile connections or the internet um
this is in in Georgia not hardly the
most remote remote parts of the US um
there's also lotss lots of places in the
world so here's an example of Syria
where there's actually the
internet out you know the connection to
the world outside of Syria is pretty
tenuous there's Tartus basically has
three connections and then there's one
in the leppo and that's it and in some
countries they've designed them
deliberately like this so Libya after
the fall of Gaddafi they uh were able to
kind of go in uh and look at how the
Telecom was built it was built for to
have one central building that could
control every aspect of telephones in
Internet um and another nice example
with is uh in Hong Kong um these
protests that broke out and they where
they occupy this um Causeway so it's
kind of a not very unexpected thing to
be have tens of thousands of people in a
um in a highway
uh and there was a lot they were trying
it was it was political demonstrations
they were trying to get themselves heard
and they had put a lot of effort into
trying to communicate and uh also keep a
breast uh with what the police were
doing um
and there was quite a bit of attention
um about uh I know I forgot the name
there was a there's a service of uh chat
app that um had a a remote
what no this one was specifically about
uh having a local connections fire chat
yes thank you fire chat uh and it got a
lot of publicity here but it um and that
one was quite interesting because it
actually it worked as a regular chat app
but if if you couldn't uh connect on the
internet it would you could also try via
Bluetooth to to send messages through
the network
um so it's it's a nice model of saying
okay well internet if you have it and uh
ad hoc mesh if you
don't uh
so now I mean these are a lot of nice
ideas and hard tees H how can we do this
uh that's part of the question that
we've been working with um our most
recent work has been related to um uh a
Mozilla um competition around offline
networks and we um started uh we chose
to focus on Latin America
um and uh to kind of be broaden our
Horizons um and we started
out we had we had done some work over
the time we started out uh with some
surveys to get some ideas of of what
what were the issues like uh what were
the concerns about people so these are
the respondents from these countries of
uh that we uh talked to
um then we're just trying to get some
general ideas about you know when you're
using a phone um you know what what are
the problems that you have um and
uh so the cost of data was number two
and batteries number number one uh so we
had come ated with a perspective very
much thinking that oh what we had heard
I we proba we had just learned a lot
about kind of how expensive it is to use
phones in a lot of parts of the world
and and that was our Focus so then we
were surprised to see oh actually yes
that's a concern but battery time is is
the number one
um so uh from from this also we say you
know how much data do people use um so 2
gigabytes are less
is about half the people that responded
so not not so much
uh and
then um how much they pay uh so most of
the people are paying more than $20 a
month uh which you know in the EU is not
so much money in a lot of places that's
that's a lot of money that's you
substantial portion of their income so
about 10% of a lot of people's income um
so and from this we so we did a lot of
interviews and things like this and uh
we we ALS so we wanted to we find that
having real stories is very informative
to the process but there's a lot of
privacy concerns to that actually saying
oh can we interview and spread your your
story about your concerns around the
world so what we did actually was based
on our uh surveys and interviews uh we
put together fictional people um and
these are three of them uh and try to
keep them um close you know close to
what we were hearing um and so these are
uh these I think there's eight or 10 or
so all available on on the okay thanks
website it's linked on the uh the talk
page uh and it just kind of tells a
little bit about their story their their
phone their income and things like this
what apps they use uh and um what they
do with the
phone and these were very uh for us very
helpful in thinking about what how to
prioritize things
um you know battery we had to we put
more effort into battery conserving
um then based on that we went back uh
We've uh the longest running piece of
this work is in fdroid uh where we
started in about 20 12 um with this what
we then called swap app swapping um and
uh from there we've tried to think
about so FID is an app store it's all
about getting a blob of data from
somewhere to your device so you can use
it um you know whether it's an app a
video ebook whatever um so in FID we we
really have this opportunity to think
about like well what are all the useful
ways that we can move Blobs of data from
here to there and how can we get them
all into one user
experience where you don't really have
to be aware you don't have to say well I
have to set
up I have to you know oh the internet's
not working I have to set up um the
Bluetooth connection in a special way so
that I will be able to use
it so we wanted or mirroring or blah
blah blah blah
so it's it's and this is really taking
shape more and more I mean on on the
left there you
have some of the many ways that
um that data gets transmitted in the in
the fdroid ecosystem so of course you
have I mean up top is eid.org it is
there by default you open up the phone
with internet device is search for an
app install it um if all is the
internet's working fine it will just
download it from there um um in each
uh in in the um f.org can declare o I'm
also available here in this mirror
um you know if you cannot reach f.org
you can try the uh repo on This Server
um so that's available in there but the
client knows to say okay I can't connect
to this one it's been uh
so what's the next in the list and we'll
try that and it'll keep on trying and
then users if you want to set if you
have your own server you want to set up
your own mirror there closer to you you
can set up your own mirror and add it
anyone and share it to anyone um and
that same logic applies um you don't the
user doesn't have to know that the main
one failed or even there's no
notification or anything it just keeps
going until it can't find anything if it
can't connect at all then you're
notified um so that still
is a centralized server that is f.org is
a Central Community of people any the
everything FID uh makes is free software
and we try to make it easy for other
people to use it so for example there is
a Guardian Project app repository or
repo um anyway you can just kind of
subscribe to it um you can send the link
via email click it and after it says do
you want to add this uh and then that
also can have its own mirror
and you can have as many of these as you
want each with their own mirrors each
with their own uh setups um and
then
uh we have the nearby functionality so
every phone has radios that can talk to
each other there's Wi-Fi radios there's
Bluetooth radios and these are set up to
exchange data um so the inro has uh the
nearby tab to help you walk you through
the process of making a connection so
you can exchange apps any app that's or
video or things like this that is
installed on your phone you can make it
available uh and connect to someone
else's device they see it in the regular
App Store experience click install um uh
and also then there's the problem of you
know you need to do this procedure you
need FID talking to FID so if you want
to send say I have an app I want to send
you I don't have FID okay well I can
just send you FID straight um so that's
a relatively straightforward thing
that's here on the left of just saying
okay well I'll send you FID first and
then the rest will be much easier to
sync up um and then of course it needs
to also play nicely with other app
stores so most the world of Android
people are used to only having Google
play but large parts of the world many
app stores is normal China for example
uh India other places um and for this to
be a whole ecosystem they all have to
play nice um so if uh you know if you're
getting apps from play and then you also
install fdroid then FID will uh do what
it can to um to uh work nicely it will
you can of course then if you install an
app from Google Play you can of course
share it on uh using um any of
these
things um and then
uh we recently saw a nice kind of a
surprising example um that would someone
came to our chat room and just said oh
by the way I've set up a store in Cuba
um and
here so because we we put the effort
into the whole tools to make sure that
uh it just if it can talk on a network
it'll work regardless of it's whether
it's the internet or not um this man in
Cuba decided he was going to open a
mobile phone store uh his and he thought
a good way to promote his mobile phone
store would be to have a local Wi-Fi
access point that you could connect and
get free apps and so that he was on the
edge of town and he said well if you
come here uh you can connect for free to
my network you'll get free apps and then
oh if you need a cable or or El pakete I
think he does I then my store is right
here um and so this is a kind of
interesting this is an interesting model
to me because it's for the most part
it's offline it is one Wi-Fi access
point with hard drive plugged into it
more or less uh and it works and then
every so often he gets he syns with the
internet so it's a kind of like once a
week internet
connection
and along those lines
um there's these little things like all
sorts of little boxes that have Wi-Fi
and storage in them now uh and uh this
one's called library boxes software for
it
um that it makes that idea of this kind
of occasionally syncing to the internet
and having a local store very very
simple and very
cheap um yeah
so the I also want to point out
like we're not the only people doing
this work and and really what we hope to
see is a lot more like a lot more people
focusing on this kind of thing and doing
it in a way where we can inter
interoperate so Brier is a messaging app
there was a talk from last year here at
Congress um from Torsen grot uh which
has it's a very similar idea it uses the
internet when it's available but it also
can do local connections for sending uh
messages um there
are this uh we worked a lot with Tibetan
activists in Dar Masala in Northern
India where a lot of Tibetans are based
they are quite remote didn't have
networks they've um set up their own
whole systems of both a network and um
computer systems that cover their area
um then I mean what we're seeing now you
know even the Silicon Valley doesn't
have uh perfect connectivity so you can
get offline maps on things like uh on
Google Maps um and we're
seeing uh you know apple and and uh
Google Now are also pushing this nearby
idea it's uh I guess hitting the
mainstream
um
and specifically so you know they have
huge engineering resources which is a
wonderful thing to see on that but they
always come there for in the case of
Apple uh my they often you know make it
work really nicely but then they stick
in arbitrary restrictions like uh you
know iTunes is not allowed to do nearby
because they don't want you sharing
music or uh and and Google of course
track adds an next to tracking because
that's their business model um and from
from uh Apple there's a very important
lesson um to always when you're
designing systems think about spam and
abuse this is a this is apparently
become a
a thing in New York where people are
doing airdrop Apple airdrop um is their
nearby Service uh
dickpics to anyone who's on the subway
who happens to have
left
their uh their air drop in I guess
there's a like kind of listen all mode
so you you open your phone and it shows
you the picture right there
right less than
ideal um and there's also so two apps uh
called Sher it and zapia which have many
millions of users which do this nearby
sharing quite well but that's what they
look like to me that doesn't look like
they're really focused on uh the nearby
so much uh I mean when they started out
it was very simple and it was all it
worked nicely and then it's the same you
know their startups it's the same
business model now they're trying to
track and monetize you with like endless
swipey things um so you know we need to
do it another way this the if we really
want to have something like that's
neutral and nearby and working
offline it it's not going to it's not
going to come from uh Apple and Google
and it's not going to come from the VC
startup fund VC funded startup
um
and for uh
to I to highlight really the the way
we're thinking about it like what we
want to put up first and foremost is is
that ultimately we want people
connecting to people um and thinking
about how people uh act rather than
encouraging them to act in a way
that's that works with your business
model
um and also uh putting this into the
design of how the protocols work so this
is some early thinking about from Paul
Baron who's involv researcher involved
in the design of the internet so it's
interesting 1962 he's thinking about you
know centralized networks decentralized
networks distributed networks
um uh but these all assumed that those
points don't
move um but people move and now that you
know we all have phones we have to
consider uh
that uh that movement is always going to
be part of this
uh so that means at some point you will
have a great connection to the Internet
so you can use it and maybe it's that
centralized Hub and spoke other points
it might be some more decentralized uh
and other points you know it may be just
connected uh connectivity to one Library
box that has specific services that you
may or may not need um there's a whole
whole range of things um that need to be
considered if to make this whole kind of
fluid experience actually
work um to break it down I mean you what
we have these kind of Concepts as
our um kind of core first is what we
call chime that's the idea you have to
it has to be discoverable if someone
sticks a little Wi-Fi box there if your
device doesn't know how to find it um
then it becomes you know it's quite a
bit of work to actually use that thing
uh and um you need some to uh
store uh data uh in order to have an
effective um uh model where I say you
have the once a week internet
uh um you also need a way for people to
send their stuff out to gather and share
it out um and and
so one thing I think is that the most
from this most recent work that is the
most generic and res sharable is to
actually say okay what is the format of
data for announcing yourself and a
service that you're offering um this is
our uh first draft of such a thing the
Windchime announced protocol um and so
this needs to announce you know I am AV
ailable on this wi-fi node so the SSID B
SSID I am available at this
address I am available at you know
whether it's Bluetooth or not uh and
this is the kind of service I providing
and it has to be in a standardized way
so that it can happen um
automatically you you don't want to
present a whole list of text you know
many many many things to the user that's
not going to ever be useful
um then we also have uh this available
in a library for Android called aanda
which just tries to make these core uh
pieces really easy to do in an app so
that's the discovery piece um the
sending files and the receiving files
part
um
so then the question is you know how can
you get started doing this in software
that you're working on and some of it is
just a matter of trying as we've learned
where you know most of the time you
think well you know if I have a network
connection even if it's just a local
network with you know small nodes it
should just work right if I'm on a mesh
Network it should just work because it's
all the internet well it turns out it's
pretty normal to check for specific
things that only exist on the internet
and then that ends up being the only
thing preventing your software from
working in a in a nearby or offline way
so that's the first thing just like well
set up a network of uh you know get a
library box one node see if you can talk
to it with your app uh you
um does it work without a domain name so
we're used to you know
CCC dode as but if you just have an IP
address just a sequence of numbers will
your app work because that actually uh
the domain name makes it a lot harder to
set up individual lightweight
nodes um and then you know in the flow
of of using your app is there data that
can that can be sent and cached and in a
in a way that's not say leaking private
information um things like that and just
starting to think about that is the is
the first step of saying and with a lot
of little tweaks you a lot of software
can work then on on um nearby and
offline networks without big fancy
changes of syncing with Bluetooth and
things like
this um so to wrap it up I just want to
say um that really what we wanted we
know that this is possible um so we want
to build this network in a way that
reflects our values instead of always
turning us into a product um and
uh that and and you know that means
building a network that there there's
will do something useful if the big
provider is not available making it easy
um that means Building Systems that you
don't have to ask in advance to set them
up uh just you know buy the 30 EUR TP
Link turn it on and it should work
um in some form you know there's lots of
things like official things like domain
names which help but it shouldn't be
essential um and then thinking a lot
about you know well how can we keep this
affordable I mean affordable
uh affordable accessible and without any
kind of arbitrary things like well you
can syn anything you want just not
iTunes
songs
um
uh so affordability then you know it
might feel like well you know it's less
important here but when the system um is
made up of affordable little bits that
gives you a lot more flexibility in how
you actually you build it so it really
applies kind of
everywhere um and in closing just to uh
leave a little something that inspires
us is these are these starlings in um in
England uh that every night gather and
just fly around in these swarms of these
self-organizing swarms uh which are U
you know many different individuals some
leading some following the leaders
change it's very highly recommend
watching the videos are amazing of these
of these Birds um and it's if we can
make networks with that kind of fluidity
of organization then that would be quite
an amazing thing thank
[Applause]
[Music]
you thank you for your talk um and we
have still some time for questions if
you have to leave then do so quietly and
uh we have two microphones one over
there and one in the middle and of
course the signal Angel just line up and
uh I will call you to ask your
questions don't forget to be quiet while
walking
out maybe a little show off hands if
somebody wants to ask a question but
cannot reach it because there are people
standing in front of the mic yeah there
okay just walk up to number two that's
sitting right over
there and go ahead yeah so you talked
about the Barcelona case U where they
have some kind of a meshed network
already as far as I understood and you
told uh and you told us that probably
the Telco providers will come there and
take take like the the piece of cake
there and build their own business model
there but what are the limitations so
why is it possible because I think if
the infrastructure is already there it
should be cheaper to maintain it than
than to pay extra for the Telo
providers um so this you're talking
about the Nicaragua case no uh for
example the Barcelona case oh the
Barcelona case um so well the problem is
you know if you have a company if you
have good competition and they can build
the networks cheaper and maintain them
and and you know do them in a way that's
with net neutrality and things like this
that's great but I think part of the
motivation in cat catalunia is that they
don't have much Network competition and
ni Nicaragua very much so there's two
comp there's a Spanish company and a
Mexican company and that's it they're
huge uh and so that these companies
don't are not responsive to what people
want to do and often put arbitrary
restrictions and things like that
does that answer your question or well I
was kind of wondering why it's not
competitive to why why like the the the
independently built infrastructure is
not competitive I I think in the case
like of
Nicaragua the telecoms really they have
lots of money they really don't want
anyone to have a set a precedent of
being effective competition and so they
were like oh they're actually getting
subscribers let's crush them I mean
they're monopolies they're hug hug huge
Malon it's you know that's that's part
of it so I think it doesn't matter the
cost really they don't want people
getting the idea that they can start
competition yeah okay microphone number
one so you currently focus on mobile
technology do you consider the desktop
or the laptop out of scope uh because
it's irrelevant or just because you want
to make it a feasible project um so for
the general idea as a whole absolutely
it's fully in scope and yeah we want to
see that uh me P personally and Guardian
Project as a kind of organization we our
development work is on mobile and that's
why this would have such a mobile bit
but we'd love to see desktop and things
like this okay number two please hi um
thank you for your talk I have actually
two
questions one is um as far as I
understood right now the Bluetooth is
the
way to go for this de centralized
networks at least what people are doing
right now and uh what is the biggest
thing that we have accomp that people
have accomplished uh until now like what
is the
biggest decentralized Network Bluetooth
based maybe in this chat client or
something and the second question is you
mentioned a lot of um technical problems
that happen and um so how does their
routing actually work with this
Bluetooth stuff do you have um like jail
based routing or do people everyone
knows everyone or yeah thank you yeah um
so yeah there's a let me see start with
a simpler question so we it's it's not
just Bluetooth so it would be
Bluetooth so you can do Wi-Fi just if
you have a access point without the
internet that works uh there's also
things like Wi-Fi Direct um which seems
to be can work nicely but not always um
so really have to kind of consider all
of them if possible um and not one
because Bluetooth is often the easiest
to connect but really slow um where
Wi-Fi is harder to connect but much
faster uh then the
largest I mean uset is the largest it's
like terabytes of data the way I
mentioned with the the forums copying
around um that is generally copied
around on the on the
internet um
that's that's the largest one that I can
think of and the the last question was
oh routing
um so that's I think for a lot of to
really
what the this wouldn't really be on the
kind of Transport layer where you're
thinking about routing um the the idea
more is to say like well so if you want
to do ad hoc routing then you would
build a mesh Network because mesh
networks are all about M ad hoc routing
uh fire chat does some I believe they do
some ad hoc routing in a very small
scale in Bluetooth and some of that I
think is freely available if I remember
um and so really the idea is more that
um so like in the case of F I think is
easiest uh is that you make we there's a
system we have a concept of a repo which
is a collection of apps etc etc files uh
and it has a kind of a globally unique
ID it's the signing key uh so that means
when the client en encounters some files
he can easily identify it as oh it
belongs I know this is eid.org because
it's the matching signing key um and it
can just say wherever it f as long as it
can talk to these files um I mean what
then it can exchange data so there's no
routing there um if if it's on a mesh
Network and it gets an IP address on
that meesh Network and it gets to the
same files the index knows um so it's
about in the app you have to think about
okay how what are the things we need to
discover what are the bits we need to
move around um and how can we do that in
a way that's um reusable you know it's
very easy to just connect to the inter
internet and say oh yeah use this domain
name assume it's always there um and I
think for that for so after is one
example I think Brier is probably a very
good example where they're integrating
internet and Bluetooth and local Wi-Fi
um to do
messaging okay just to check is there a
question from the internet no questions
from the internet so then number uh two
was there before uh and one of the
things that I noticed is that you're
talking about apps and uh fdroid and
distributing apps and then connecting to
local nodes uh what about ipfs that and
uh uh and some of the other distributed
networks have you I'm sure you looked
into those and you were talking in the
beginning about like integrating with uh
other uh initiatives like Matrix and so
on was on the slides can you talk about
that and yeah um ipfs for people who
don't know is interplanetary file system
the idea of one file system that is
accessible all over the world um I think
ipfs is a great example for this kind of
thing
um and we would love to integrate it's
just it's only so many hours of the day
in the day question really um we we've
been focusing so right now uh I it's
something we I'd very happily If someone
knows ipfs and wants to try and
integrate it into something I would
happily work with them uh we my personal
focus is is on the lower hanging fruit I
think or at least from my perspective
based on what I know and that's like um
some of the mirroring stuff some of the
um like the library box local internet
free box uh the Bluetooth so that's
based on my or the pool of skills and
interests of the people who've done the
work
um that's part of what I'm hopefully am
trying to you know what I'm conveying
here which is that this needs to be
decentralized in effort there's so many
ways and and and it's like okay how can
we find a ways to tile these things
together uh and make it so that you know
messages can go from uh a Bluetooth mesh
over the ipfs to then the centralized
internet and back and and work without
people thinking about
it okay unfortunately our time is now up
so uh find anof here at the Congress if
you have more questions uh later at any
place around here I guess so and um yeah
let's give a warm hand of Applause for H
thank
[Applause]
you
[Music]