Needed a WiFi "FidoNet"

[Steve Schear]

It would seems that the means may soon be at hand for using WiFi, or 
WiFi-like, equipment to create ad hoc, meshed, non-commercial 
networks.  These, I believe would present particular difficulties for 
monitoring (law enforcement and otherwise) since routing and 
interconnections would be dynamic and there would be no ISP nor 
(potentially) any use of the Internet backbone.

The DoD funded some research in the 80s and 90s (e.g., SRI's Packethop and 
MeshNetworks) which resulted in Metricom, Tetherless Access and Nokia's 
RoofTop's networks.  Now some students at MIT have taken up the cause 
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/print_version/wo_guizzo082903.asp. 
If a digital bearer cash system were to become available a means for 
pricing bandwidth and encouraging the establishment of such an 
infrastructure could well follow.

steve


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
     -- Arthur C. Clarke