[wsfii-discuss] Was FON in Spain - Now, can someone please explain...

[Juergen Neumann]

Hi all,

Please see bottom for my comments.

> > These are lightweight infrastructures and though vulnerable is many
> > ways are easily repairable and flexible enough to overcome
obstacles.
> > Networks and users will always require attention and support as they
> > grow and develop, and will always raise issues for us to tackle.
> 
> Again, based on a developing nation deployment, who would be the
person
> that fixes these problems - oftentimes fighting the obstacles of very
> computer illiterate users coupled with long distances compounding the
> problems.
> 
> My concern is based on who, if anyone, is looking at this aspect of
the
> daily use of these networks.
> 
> In a centralized network, this type of problem can be dealt with,
> individual users can be shut off if they are infected with a virus as
> well as defensive action can be taken from DDOS attacks. Considering
> that roughly 2/3rds of the total Internet traffic is now compromised
of
> PtP transfers a centralized network can also "manage" this traffic but
I
> see no comparable mechanism in the networks we are talking about here.
> Is there such a thing? Does this even need to be addressed?
> 
> > Our "spontaneous networks" are user oriented, all involved have a
> > contribution to make and much to learn.
> 
> Please understand, I love this concept and can see all kinds of
> applications for this technology ranging from emergency communications
> to infrastructure deployment as well as many, many others. I see this
> type of network being able to provide many critical services while
> providing value to the community at large without monthly recurring
> expenses. However, this is also something that I see as being suitable
> for industrialized nations to be deploying and based on my complete
lack
> of understanding I have concerns (as noted above) that this type of
> network architecture is not the best choice for developing nations as
it
> sits today.
> 
> Based on your experience, do you think some kind of management can be
> designed where "superusers" can be granted the ability to see network
> issues and fix them remotely? Can some kind of monitoring be built
into
> these platforms that will identify trouble spots so they can be dealt
> with? Is this approach even advisable?

I think that amongst the different community networks out there, there
are many variations of these issues. I want to say something about our
Berlin approach and why I think that this is the best way to run
networks of large scale and almost unlimited growth.

If a network is administered by a core group, the core group and it's
organisation will have to grow with the number of nodes attached. That
is a huge project in a huge network. The "user" in such a network will
always expect help and support from the administration and will not take
efforts to help him- or herself. The network will not be self-provided
but provided by an (any) other organisation.

Our approach is a totally self run and self administered network. Every
single user or better every node-owner is responsible for his/her node.
All problems are solved locally by the local community of neighbours -
of course with the help of the rest of the community in form of wikis,
mailinglist, and other colab-tools and self organized visiting and
helping each other face-to-face.

Such a network has to suffer from misconfiguration, frustration,
DOS-attacs (many of them happening because people don't know what they
are doing - not on purpose) and so on and so forth, but in the sum, and
I can state that with more than three years of experience here in
Berlin, I works pretty well.

The big advantage is that people can grow the network themselves without
any dependency on the administration (which just doesn't exist). The
community as a whole takes efforts to optimize the system - basicly the
software run on the nodes and documentation and teaching material). So
the intelligence of the software which is run on the nodes is the
essential key to quality of the network. This software MUST be
open-source, so that the community can contribute, optimize and change
it to their needs (that's another reason why fon just is no alternative
at all!). 

With this totally decentralized approach based on the idea that people
help themselves in a do-it-yourself (DIY) manner, self organized, self
responsible, we have managed to run a network that grows from day to day
without any centralized administration. 

I know that there is a lot of critique about this approach and many
people believe that it just doesn't work for one reason or the other.
And I know that it takes a lot of optimism to start a project this way -
putting the trust in the community not in a legal entity. And maybe in
some places it works better and in some other places this might even
fail ...

But if I think of India and it's agenda for 2007 or Afrika  or other
huge projects I think this is the best way to reach the goals. It means
to trust and to teach the local people and to enable them to fulfil
their own wishes. It means to enable people to help and teach each other
in a true grassroots manner.       

These are just my 2 cents about deploying ICT in large scale. Maybe I
have no clew of what I'm talking about !?

Best ...

JuergeN