panos's blog

Blockchain and Community Networks: friends or foes?

panos — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 14:32:45 +0000

There is a lot of discussion and numerous initiatives that aim to explore blockchain technology in the context of Internet access sharing and more general Community Networking.

At the IGF 2018, I did a small intervention at the workshop WS279 "Scaling community networks: exploring blockchain and efficient investment strategies". This was a merge of two workshops, one of which was titled "Community networks meet blockchains: friends or foes?".

I tried to give my own answer to this original question in the IGF 2018 workshop WS279, based on the book chapter I co-authored with Jens Martignoni for the new DC3 book "The community network manual : how to build the Internet yourself" edited by Luca Belli.

In short, my opinion is that when blockchain solutions are linked to the global blockchain speculation ecosystem, they will inevitably lead to situations that are not compatible with the values of self-determination and empowerment of local communities that most Community Networks embrace.

In the following, you can read the text I wrote in preparation for my intervention slightly edited to be more coherent.

What can blockchain do (and what not) for community networks

What is blockchain

Blockchain technology solves the problem of accounting of a variety of interactions without centralized intermediaries, through extensive cryptography, replication of data, and distributed computation. To achieve a truly decentralized, peer-to-peer, structure, it relies on significant investment of resources from the individual "peers". The more the network grows, the more resources are required by each peer to maintain its state, the blockchain, and ensure the integrity of the data.

This is one of the main reasons why blockchain-based cryptocurrencies have an almost built-in speculation element.

To say it simply, one only agrees to invest the enormous amount of resources with the expectation to get rich in the future! So, a typical bubble/lottery mentality has ingrained the blockchain narrative and its followers,making blockchain projects to look more like "ponzi schemes" than crowd funding for innovation platforms. And the actual, technical, political, or other reasons that would justify the use of blockchain in a certain situation often get lost on the way. It is all about money.

In addition, there are other characteristics that make the whole enterprise very questionable at a political level namely the fact that decentralization does not include proper governance structures, the replacement of institutional trust by encryption algorithms, and its severe impact on energy consumption.

Indeed, in the discussion about the impact of blockchain, "This changes everything" as Naomi Klein's recent book analyzes very eloquently, where "this" is referring to the "climate change", of course.

As I often point in conversations with colleagues, if your blockchain solution is not energy efficient, if it does not involve some people somewhere meeting in person to make decisions, and if it does not imply a structure for building trust at a human level, it is not "for good".

Most importantly, if it causes value to fly from local economies to the unknown, it can be very harmful at the long-term for those involved and beyond.

What happens when Community networks meet blockchains?

But let's see how all that is being played out today in the area of community networks.

And let's start by a Community Network born long time ago, when blockchain was not yet invented. Freifunk.net is a Community Network in Germany whose members have developed an alternative firmware for routers which allows to share your Internet connection without any cost for your own usage, and also create links between nearby routers, or a "mesh" network, to expand the coverage.

These community members do not only share their spare Internet capacity without any direct reward but it's quite the opposite case. They invest a significant amount of time and effort fighting for our right to share, despite the severe technical, legal, and political obstacles that such "natural" sharing practices face today.

On the other extreme, there are numerous blockchain-based initiatives like RightMesh, Ammbr, Skycoin, Wificoin, and many others, which have recently resurrected the narrative of making money by sharing one's Internet connection.

"One network accessed by anyone, owned by everyone", one can read at http://wificoin.net, or similarly "Better Internet for everyone, built by anyone" at hypermesh.net,

Skycoin is building "The new Internet for the new world", and Rightmesh puts "The power of connectivity in the hands of people". Ammbr is more direct offering a clear incentive to its potential customers: "Get paid to share your internet connection with the world".

Ammbr is of particular interest because some CNs like guifi.net and ninux.org openly support it.

In my opinion, there are many problems with this narrative, including the soundness of its economic model. But the worst of all is that it promotes the idea that the major obstacle for community networks are incentives for personal profit, which is inaccurate looking at the successes of current CNs with such motives, and EVEN if the face huge political, legal, and social challenges today, as José Bové mentioned in his intervention in the recent netCommons workshop at the EU parliament. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGwXUAyzRv4

An analogy with AirBnB

Let us thus make an analogy with housing, and how the AirBnB platform has professionalized the offering of accommodation through sharing. For this form of sharing,there used to be alternatives based on the "gift economy" model, for instance, 'couch surfing' being the most known platform.

Remarkably, renting one's apartment with the mediation of a global commercial like AirBnB is branded today as "sharing economy", while it is beyond any doubt just a "renting" (for financial profit) economy.

Through this successful business model, AirBnB did indeed influence also the political and legal sphere, lobbying to bypass laws that protect the hotel industry and the quality of urban living in residential neighborhoods.

It would need, however, another talk to explain how the overall impact of AirBnB is more negative than positive to local economies, with the recent struggles of the cities of Barcelona, Amsterdam and others to regulate its use, an evidence of the threats posed by such global intermediaries.

In any case, from a "user" perspective, sharing one's Internet connection is much easier than sharing one's apartment, isn't it?!

It is really (or could be) just a matter of configuration of one's router.

Still, some might rightly argue that network systems like Freifunk are an exception, and if we really need to solve the problem of Internet affordability, more explicit incentives need to be provided. It could mean that people will need to invest in more performant and robust infrastructure than just sharing their spare capacity.

The good news

The good news is that there are already in function "pragmatic" (market based) models, like Guifi.net that operates a region-wide (and beyond) infrastructure, through which members of the network contribute in a fair way to the (market) cost of their common Internet gateway. Freifunk.net includes also such subnetworks in their ecosystem.

Again, the main obstacles in the expansion of this model are legal and political. Guifi.net is very often refused access to public infrastructure that would allow the CN to expand their backbone network. Along these lines, they have recently submitted a complaint to the EU ombudsman and, by the way, we should all help them defend their cause for the benefit of all Europeans!

In short, as Guifi.net has solved their sustainability problem, but their further growth is prohibited for questionable legal (national) grounds, against the EU legislation. Even more importantly the network does not even have to scale itself. Other communities can replicate the same model, as scaling through replication is a very sustainable and resilient option for "growth".

As for the "trust" building, from which blockchain "relieves us", is one of the most important benefits of systems like guifi.net. They engage people in deliberations, and develop appropriate methodologies for resolving conflicts and build consensus, and real, community, trust.

Taking this process away from communities is in the long-term producing more and more unsolvable issues like we have seen in the transformation of localities through homogeneous cookie-cutter / standardized solutions.

Decentralization will work "for good" if the "nodes" of the network are, rather than somewhat helpless individuals addicted to the ups and down of the bitcoin and ethereum prices, well organized communities that are aware of their rights to the Internet, sharing knowledge on how to build their own customized community networks.

Blockchain can help to make transactions easier and more credible, but only if it is designed to be independent of the global blockchain speculation market.

* Thanks to Ileana Apostol, Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, and Félix Tréguer for feedback in earlier versions of this talk preparation draft.

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Encounters in the hybrid city: Berlin

panos — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 21:41:33 +0000

‘Encounters in the hybrid city’ is an ongoing series of events that started in March 2018, initiating encounters between different activists claiming the rights of citizens in the digital and physical domains. They have much to learn from each other's practices, challenges, and expertise, but also can support each other's agenda through various forms of collaboration.

On May 13, 2018 took place in Berlin one such encounter in the context of the ‘battle of the mesh’, a major event in the Community Networks scene returning in 2018 to the famous C-base, one of the CN scene's birthplace back in the early 2000s.

The Prinzessinnengarten is ten-minutes walk from C-base. It is a key location for the right to the city movement in Berlin, and hosts in a very central node of the city a wide variety of activities and organizations. Its wooden structure "die Laube" is both a symbol and a visible functional space for hosting events and workshops on various topics related to the right to the city movement. Moreover, die Laube is the base of the MAZI project's pilot run by the UdK's Design Research Lab and by the Common Grounds' project Neighbourhood Academy. This made much easier an otherwise very challenging task: to bring urban activists at the C-base and digital activists to the Prinzessinnengarten. Interestingly many of the local actors in these two “activist hubs” have not visited the “other” one.

The presence of the CN community in such an important location for the CN movement, and close to an equally important location for the right to the city movement in Berlin, was very promising. The encounter started at the C-base, at the end of a week long ‘battle of the mesh’ full of events, discussions, and tests. Sunday being the last day the number of people present at the C-base was significantly smaller than the previous days. Only one technical presentation was scheduled for that day, after which the invited guests from the local urban activism scene, around then, entered the main room of C-base.

We introduced this non-conventional workshop with two provocations, one for each side:

Urban activists will not be able to defend our rights to the city if they don’t include in their claims the right to the digital infrastructures
Digital activists will end up offering just cheap labour for providing affordable access to the Internet, and more specifically to Facebook, Google, and the like, if they do not address locality in their narrative and do not integrate their efforts with the wider right to the city movement.

A circle was formed in the center of the room, which was joined only by few of the “locals”, the rest staying outside the circle observing the round of introductions. Many interesting urban initiatives were represented like Nachbarschaftsakademie, Stadt von Unten, MetroZones, Mietshaeuserssyndikat, Tesserae, INURA Berlin, Bizim Kiez, Tempelhof Vision, and more. In the beginning it felt like a foreign body entered the C-base and started talking between themselves, including statements by all participants allowing to get to know better each other (e.g., What is the battle of the mesh? What is the prinzessinnengarten? What are the current challenges/tactics of urban and digital activists?).

After the end of the ‘inner’ circle in which only a few digital networking projects were introduced, like Freifunk, La quadrature du Net, and hackerspace Athens, the debate started quickly with many people questioning the dichotomy created by the description of the event, separating the digital with the physical space, and indeed the digital with the urban activists. Jochen from MetroZones gave as example collaborations already from the 1990s Botschaft, Bar + Disco and Katrin proposed that looking at past experiences would help to understand how the movement could be strengthened.

We defended this framing stressing that the only reason for making a distinction between these “inseparable” today spaces (refer to the introductory section of this document) is that in reality many people actually don’t reflect upon their close interrelation, and most importantly, upon the many inspiring analogies and potential complementarities and synergies.

This clarifying intervention broke the ice and people out of the circle started participating and sharing their experiences and possible tactics to defend our rights to the hybrid city. For example, the Mietshaeuser Syndikat is an interesting case study of using existing institutions and laws to create alternatives like various forms of non-speculative, affordable housing, and more specifically to take housing stock “out of the market”.

On the technology side, the important role of a “playing” attitude was highlighted by Adam Burns, the Free2Air’s founder, and netCommons advisor. Adam also highlighted that community is a tricky word and thus it is critical to keep experimenting.From a policy perspective, Virginie from netCommons and La Quadrature du Net highlighted the need to participate also in policy and regulation activities at the EU level but also the national and global. There are many important constraints or openings that could be created by bad or good legislations, respectively.

Then the example of the project genuino clandestino in Bologna, was given for synergies between different forms of resistance, including mesh networking, and also between content, organization and communication within the movement. And the situation in Greece was discussed as an example on how the economic and other crises could become also drivers for resistance and offer opportunities, like the abundance of empty spaces in the city of Athens.

Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse, co-author of “Urban Commons: Moving beyond State and Market”, highlighted the concept of the commons as the 3rd way between the state and the market. She identified as one of the most important finding of hers and others’ research the fact that, in most cases, it is a core group of twenty or even less people running most commons-based initiatives, which are highly depended on them.

At this point was identified the key role of infrastructure as an important common aspect of both domain of action, digital and urban. Interestingly, the idea of the “infinite” digital or “virtual” space was contested as artificial since the energy limitations are important constraint for the digital space that shouldn’t be underestimated. Along these lines, see also JoPP article on the Tupello collective in Genoa.

Actually, many of the urban activists like Konstantin Stergiou have been recently involved in actions against the moving of Google offices in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood, “consuming the neighborhood collective product” as someone noted. A very telling manifestation of how the digital and urban rights become more and more interrelated. But what is the alternative to Google someone asked? How can one compete in terms of usability and economies of scale?

Monic Meisel, co-founder of Freifunk and an advocate for local applications in CNs since the early days, admitted that engaging people in using such local applications has proved extremely hard. The examples of austici and framasoft, the french approach the “dégooglisation of the Internet”, creating server coops collectively (self-)managed, but also the MAZI toolkit, were brought as good examples on how technology can help to reduce the barriers to entry.

Thiago Novaes, a political scientist dealing with related digital legal issues, brought the experience from the Amazon, explaining how communities manage to build their own networks with very little resources, and highlighting the fact that it is the process that it is the most important and not the final outcome, the infrastructure by itself.

This part of the discussion was concluded by Ileana from NetHood, proposing to collectively develop and promote a broader perspective on sustainability, through various initiatives and projects, affirming differences and creating a diversity of choices for the livability of the urban system.

The discussion then moved to some ethical dilemmas that activists might face in their effort to engage people in their actions. For example, the use of aggressive advertisement tactics was discussed, with some being in favour seeing it as an only way to compete for attention with the big corporations, and others against, considering that such tactics are not compatible with the values and principles of the movements. Even more controversial was the proposal to use local networks as a means to block access to Facebook and Google. This seemed to be a very sensitive topic for the digital activists that led to a heated discussion about the meaning of Internet freedom, and whether those that jeopardise this freedom should be actively excluded from alternative infrastructures.

After this introductory round, we all walked together toward the Prinzessinnengarten in small groups, some of them already “mixed”, engaging in more informal discussions. For most of the digital activists it was the first time to visit the Prinzessinnengarten and they were offered a guided tour when we arrived. It was interesting to know that one of the principles of the garden is to allow easy access to experimentation by making it “easy” to make mistakes and thus learn, which is one of the main principles of hacking. The need for compromises was also brought to the fore, with the description of the necessary commercial activities developed in the garden that subsidize non-profit project like the Neighbourhood Academy.

During the reception that followed at the wooden construction “Die Laube”, more mixed groups were formed and interesting discussions took place. For example, some urban activists were impressed by the resistance of digital activists to the temptation of “blocking google” from their local networks, something not so obvious in political movements in which the exclusion of “racism”, “violence”, etc is typically tolerated as a defense mechanism.

The pervasiveness of the internet and the rights of some groups to remain disconnected, if they wish so, wasalso brought to the discussion. The resolution was that the strong will of some of the activists to keep tryingand connect the disconnected should be accompanied by instilling values and raising awareness on issues likeprivacy and data manipulation.

P.S. Read the full report on "Community networks and the right to the city" for more hybrid encounters in Heraklion, Greece and Zurich, Switzerland and the concept of the "right to the hybrid city".

P.S.2 At the time of writing of this blog entry there were news that Google cancels its tech campus project in Kreuzberg. See https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/10/google-cancels-tech-campus-kreuzber...

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DIY networking: the path to a more democratic internet

panos — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 10:15:46 +0000

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The refugee crisis has revealed the limitations of the telecommunications market to offer internet connectivity to people in need. As is often the case when the market fails, citizen organisations have stepped in.

Freifunk.net, one of the most successful such community networks, has come to fill the gap and provide vital internet services to refugees in Germany.

This was made possible thanks to an innovative way of using communications technology: DIY networking.

DIY networking is an umbrella term for different types of grassroots networking, such as mesh networks. According to Vice magazine, mesh networks not only allow wifi routers to provide signals to wifi-enabled devices, as usual, but also, “routers have the ability to connect to and talk to each other. By ‘meshing’ them, or connecting them together, you are creating a larger wifi zone.”

Artists have been looking at these networks as a way to expand and diversify our communication abilities, while questioning mainstream access to internet. In this spirit, Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter recently used the technology to “talk back” to the NSA.

DIY community networks have been also used as social tools to reconnect citizens, for example, the Sarantaporo.gr initiative in Greece. Sarantaporo has provided a community solution for affordable internet access, but it’s also a revolutionary model for building networking infrastructure, attracting the attention of academics and institutions.

The Spanish community network Guifi.net even won a European Union broadband award last year.

These networks have an important role to play as a counter to the few corporations that dominate the internet, and also as a way to raise awareness of the challenges of privacy, net neutrality, censorship, surveillance and manipulation.

How does it work?

A wireless router, in essence a special purpose computer, can do more than just connect your devices to the internet. It could host a wide variety of web services, from a simple site to a fully fledged collaborative platform, accessible only to those in physical proximity.

These include a virtual announcement board for a block of apartments, an online guestbook for an urban garden, a file-sharing platform for a workshop, and many more creative uses of “self-hosted” web applications, like Wordpress, Owncloud and Etherpad that anyone can host on a private web server.

These services are accessible through the router’s wireless antenna announcing a network name, a Service Set IDentifier (SSID), exactly as it works when you connect to a free or home wifi. They can appear automatically on a splash page or captive portal when you open you browser (as is often the case in airports, cafes and hotels).

If the router is equipped with a second antenna, it can easily connect to a similar router residing in the coverage area whose size depends on the type of antenna and environmental factors.

The first antenna can then be used to allow people with their personal devices to connect. And the second to exchange information with the neighbouring router. Each router then becomes a “node” in a small network: anyone who connects to one of them can access the services offered by, and people connected to, the other as well. As more nodes get connected, larger areas are covered, and a community can be formed, initially by the owners of the nodes and eventually by everyone in the area.

Of course, you cannot easily build a whole such network by yourself, but you can build yourself a single network node using cheap hardware (such as a Raspberry Pi) and free self-hosted software for installing the set of local services and applications of your choice.

The only legal issues appear when you also offer internet connectivity through such a network because of liability issues when it comes to copyrighted content.

Personal networks

It is perfectly legal, in principle, to operate such a node on its own, attached to your balcony or inside your backpack. This could be your personal network inviting your neighbours, fellow travellers, or any strangers sharing the same public space.

The presence of an invisible digital space can be announced through physical urban interventions: a visible marker on the device itself, a QR code, a poster, even through artistic performances or direct face-to-face communication.

Anyone in proximity can join without the need for credentials or other identification, except for being there, and without the need of any internet connection.

The ‘occupy here’ DIY network node, developed by Dan Phiffer during the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York.

Examples of successful uses of such personal networks include occupy.here or the PirateBox. Polylogue allows people in proximity to post short messages and see them printed live on a piece of paper that as it advances, gets shredded on the other end. A sort of hybrid, real-world Snapchat.

Soon it will be possible to build and customise a wide variety of such DIY networks using the MAZI toolkit.

Polylogue I in action, Transmediale Berlin 2016.
Design Research Lab, UdK Berlin, Author provided

Community networks

Community wireless networks have been under development since the late 1990s by tech enthusiasts and activists advocating for a more open, neutral and democratic internet. They include a mix of local services, such as file sharing and live streaming (AWMN.net and Ninux.org) and the provision of internet connectivity. Freifunk, WlanSlovenja, Sarantaporo.gr, and many more focus on this aspect.

There are also important differences related to the governance model and the concept of the community itself.

Freifunk follows the “free internet for all” approach and depends mostly on voluntary contributions of their members to offer internet connectivity.

On the other hand, Guifi.net places significant focus on the concept of the “commons” implying concrete boundaries and resource management rules. It has developed a unique model in which the network infrastructure, including fibre cables, is treated as separate from the services they are involved with providing.

A map depicting the nodes of the Guifi.net network in Spain.
Guifi.net, Author provided

The success story of Sarantaporo

The Sarantaporo.gr Community Network in Greece represents another type of community network, deployed in rural areas with limited or no connectivity – places where the free market fails.

This particular network was built initially by a small team of young activists who received hardware by the OpenWifi project of the Greek Free/Open Source Software Society (GFOSS), and funding by the EU project CONFINE and free Internet access via the Technical University of Larissa.

It has provided broadband internet to around 15 small villages in Elassona municipality, but most importantly has raised awareness and hope about building communities of commons in Greece.

The main concern today is to include more local people in sustaining the network, providing suitable legal, economic, and political tools for ensuring its sustainability, but also shifting the focus beyond internet access and towards possible local services that could be offered over the existing common infrastructure.

Antenna installation for the Sarantaporo.gr Community Network.
Personal Cinema, Author provided

When corporations move in

It is not only grassroots communities, researchers, engineers, and civil society organisations that make efforts to bring internet access to all. Facebook is trying to provide basic internet connectivity everywhere in the world for free, and competes with Google over “stratospheric internet plans”.

Such platforms have the power to become the only online places that people visit, at a huge price: our privacy and self-determination.

So, a very challenging question is raised for community networking activists: to which internet are they helping people to connect? And why should their offers be chosen over more mainstream, easily accessible, ones?

The answer to these questions reveal a tension between the immediate need to provide access for all and the need to make sure that the internet is built for the common good and not the interests of a few global corporations.

Building local alternatives can play a key role in creating necessary net-diversity and serve many important practical, political, and social purposes.

This is the first of two articles on the phenomenon of DIY internet.

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Defending Free Software for radio devices

panos — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 21:04:00 +0000

The netCommons project follows very closely the developments regarding the EU radio directive which was adopted in 2014, and which is currently being transposed at the national level by the member states. The reason is that Article 3.3 might put in jeopardy the ability to install alternative, unauthorized by the manufacturer, software on radio devices. Although at a first glance this looks like a wise decision, it may cause unneccessary harm, if not implemented approprietely in the national legislations. We try to answer below in simple words a few frequently asked questions in this context, as a quick summary of the detailed analysis provided by FSFE, and a first step toward a more thorough legal investigation of this issue.

What is the EU radio directive?

According to the Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU, which needs to be implemented by EU members in national law byuntil 12.06.2016 with a transition period of one year, all devices that can send and receive radio signals need to be checked for compliance by their manufacturers for every possible software which can be installed on the device.

What is the current situation?

Today, those responsible for a device's non-compliance to regulation are the users that make changes either on the hardware or software of the device. Such legitimate changes include the installation of Free Software, which aim to satisfy special technical requirements regarding security and supported protocols.

What is the problem?

The main danger arising from this directive is that it shifts liability for installed software from the user to the manufacturer. It will make it extremely costly for manufacturers to check properly all non-proprietary software that can run on their devices, forcing them to forbid completely this action. To achieve this, manufacturers may have to install additional proprietary software that would infringe the terms of the GNU GPL. This would force them to rewrite huge software parts from scratch which is impossible for many businesses.

Why is a Radio Directive compatible with Community Networks and Free Software important?

It promotes innovation, competition and interoperability
It empowers non-profit organizations to provide affordable Internet access to underserved areas and populations, but also in cases of emergency and disasters
It offers advanced security solutions, which are transparent and continuously maintained by a global community
It provides the means to keep operational devices that are no longer supported by their manufacturers with positive economic and ecological impact
It protects consumers from lock-in and non-transparent policies by big corporations

What can we do?

The European Commission can adopt delegated acts - as empowered by the European Parliament and Council (Art. 44) -

that make general exceptions for equipment used by Community Networks, including all Free Software not developed by the manufacturers or avoid shifting the responsibility for the software's regulatory compliance from the users to the manufacturers.

The EU member state legislators and regulators can also make binding interpretations of the directive's provisions so that Free Software can still be installed on radio devices without discrimination. As pointed out in recital (19) of the Directive, third party software providers, such as Free Software projects, shall not be disadvantaged (as it stands now, the directive's recital is unfortunately non-binding, which creates a lot of legal insecurity and potential huge lack of harmonization across Member States).

So, there is still a chance to minimize the possible harm by this directive, if we reach those that can influence its final transposition into national law.

23 organizations and companies, including netCommons, have signed the Joint Statement against the Radio Lockdown, and you are also welcome to sign!

Whom should I contact to learn more and help?

https://fsfe.org/

https://www.eff.org/

https://www.laquadrature.net/en/

Where can I read more about how things evolved?

The FCC rules in the US laid out in ET Docket No. 15-170 get noticed

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/hey-fcc-dont-lock-wi-fi-routers/

http://prpl.works/2015/09/21/yes-the-fcc-might-ban-your-operating-system/

The first reactions: Dave Täht, co-founder of the Bufferbloat Project, and Dr. Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet, along with more than 260 other global network and cybersecurity experts send a letter to the FCC

http://www.bufferbloat.net/news/58

http://huchra.bufferbloat.net/~d/fcc_saner_software_practices.pdf

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151014005564/en#.Vh4ojflViko

From the US to the EU

https://juliareda.eu/2015/10/dear-european-governments-dont-endanger-free-and-open-wifi-networks/

https://blog.tohojo.dk/2015/10/the-new-wifi-regulations-in-europe.html

http://blog.freifunk.net/2015/its-do-or-die-now

FCC's reply:

https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2015/11/12/clearing-air-wi-fi-software-updates

Counter-replies to FCC:

https://wwahammy.com/seriously-the-fcc-might-still-ban-your-operating-system/

https://www.eff.org/fr/deeplinks/2015/11/free-router-software-not-crosshairs-fcc-clarifies

The EU Radio Directive is approved and first devices getting locked

https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective/

http://hackaday.com/2016/02/26/fcc-locks-down-router-firmware/

https://blog.tohojo.dk/2016/02/why-is-access-to-wifi-firmware-important.html

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/way-go-fcc-now-manufacturers-locking-routers/

https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Save_WiFi/Individual_Comments

Letters addressing legislators and regulators are written by various organizations

https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective/statement.en.html

https://www.laquadrature.net/en/radio-directive-letter-ministry-budget-arcep

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Building networks together, as commons

panos — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:54:16 +0000

On April 22nd, I will give a talk at University College London, at the Communications and Information Systems Group, which summarizes two new Horizon2020 CAPS projects in which NetHood proudly participates, netCommons and MAZI (meaning "together" in Greek). The abstract of the talk describes the motivation for the existence of these two complementary projects which focus on different types of community networks, different research disciplines, and different case studies.

Building networks together, as commons

Panayotis Antoniadis, NetHood Zurich

Wireless community networks and other forms of DIY networking can serve two different objectives: 1) to improve Internet connectivity in a certain area and 2) to support local interactions and services. Since the nodes of such networks are owned and operated by individuals, significant coordination is required around various issues: from purely technical, like the underlying networking protocols, to more social and political, like the design of the applications running on the network and the governance of the whole ecosystem (access and resource allocation, cost recovery, community support, conflict resolution, etc.).

To enable the proliferation of such networks for the common good, and manage them as true commons, a wide variety of actors ---researchers from different disciplines, practitioners, hackers, and activists, among others--- need to exit from their comfort zones and work together around complex issues for long periods of time.

The main argument of this talk is that for such interactions to be productive and fruitful, i.e., to lead to the development of tools for communities that are both powerful and convivial (a la Illich), one should carefully distinguish between the two main roles of a community network, Internet access vs. local services, and their possible combinations.

In this context, I introduce two new EU Horizon2020 projects that approach the question of DIY networking from two different complementary perspectives.

netCommons, http://netcommons.eu, sets as its starting point the existing large-scale (wireless) community networks in Europe, such as Barcelona's Guifi.net, which are used today mostly as gateways to the Internet. The project brings in contact these communities of mostly engineers and technology enthusiasts, with experts on legal, economic, political, and urban aspects that can help those networks to become more resilient against recent developments that threaten their existence, and more inclusive and useful for the local communities around them (beyond Internet connectivity).

MAZI (meaning "together" in Greek), http://mazizone.eu, takes the perspective of existing grassroots initiatives whose goals are social and political in nature, and explores ways that DIY networking technologies can help pursue them. For this, it follows a transdisciplinary methodology that brings together different aspects of design (engineering, human-computer interaction, interation design, design research, and urban design) around the development of a DIY networking toolkit as the "boundary object", and four concrete pilot studies: Berlin's urban garden prinzessinnengarten and neighbourhood academy, Zurich's cooperative housing and living project Kraftwerk1, London's network of local communities in Deptford, and the nomadic group unMonastery.

The overall objective of the talk is to open up the discussion on the role of DIY networking and community networks in the city, and include actors from different fields toward building common vocabularies, common understandings of complex issues, and common strategies for addressing them.

References

P. Antoniadis, I. Apostol, M. Gaved, M. Smyth, A. Unteidig, DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city, Hybrid City Conference, Athens, September 17-19th 2015. Available at: http://nethood.org/publications/antoniadis_et_al_DIYnetworking_HybridCity2015.pdf

P. Antoniadis and I. Apostol, The right(s) to the hybrid city and the role of DIY networking Journal of Community Informatics, special issue on Community Informatics and Urban Planning, vol. 10, 2014. Available at: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1092/

P. Antoniadis, J. Ott, and A. Passarella (eds.), Do It Yourself Networking: an interdisciplinary perspective Dagstuhl reports, 4(1): 125-151, June 2014. Available at: http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2014/4538/