Commotion Wireless

[mimosa]

This is a project funded by the US government to facilitate distributed communications networks, that is, people talking to each other without being snooped on by the authorities:

https://code.commotionwireless.net/proj ... otion/wiki

I read about it in this article in the British newspaper The Guardian, which emphasises its reliance on open source development not secret code:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... foundation

As far as I understand it, the concept seems to be a bit like Tor, except it's not a browser.

[Shador]

As far as I understand it, the concept seems to be a bit like Tor, except it's not a browser.

There are 2 problems here. First of all tor is not a browser, it's a proxy (a socks proxy to be more precise). It's mostly used with http for the www and thus by browsers but there's quite a difference.

As far as mesh networks are concerned they're a completely different thing and I doubt they do provide the same anonymity as tor. It's possible though, I think. To my knowledge the intention of free networks is to provide protection against censorship as well as supervision and (more) failsafe, alternative networks.
That idea is not at all new: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wi ... _by_region
But if it builds on existing solutions like freifunk or is compatible with them, while working in an easy-to-setup plug and play manner, it could be quite promising.

[caitlyn]

Actually, tor isn't a proxy either. It's an onion router. It uses a proxy (usually privoxy) but it does not contain proxy code in and of itself. https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en

[Shador]

To my knowledge tor provides access to its network resp. onion routing capabilites. The interface to those services is provided through a socks4/5 proxy (I specifically checked that for my fist post). Now one could argue whether that allows one to call it a proxy. IMHO a proxy is routing traffic (especially e.g. transparent proxies used to provide filtered internet access for a public network) so I see no problem calling it either proxy or router. I guess it depends on your specific focus.
I get your point though. The fact that tor is commonly used with a http proxy like privoxy or polipo could lead to misunderstandings. So I guess it's good you brought that up. Thanks.

Anyway, my intention was to point out that tor provides access to a special network through a proxy. And that just because such a proxy can be (indirectly used through another proxy) by browsers doesn't make it a browser. Although the tor bundle ships with all three. But that's the bundle not tor.

[mimosa]

Absolutely. And it seems that Commotion Wireless is *not* intended to be used in conjunction with a browser, but it shares with Tor the aim of foiling oppressive surveillance, especially by the State.

What I thought especially interesting was that they have embraced open source working instead of trying to keep the actual mechanism secret. Some previous attempts to develop similar ideas didn't publish their code and came badly unstuck, according to the piece I linked to in the Guardian.

[Shador]

Absolutely. And it seems that Commotion Wireless is *not* intended to be used in conjunction with a browser, but it shares with Tor the aim of foiling oppressive surveillance, especially by the State.

The big difference between them though is that while mesh networks are basically impossible to shutdown, tor offers no such protection (actually tor should be usable over mesh networks combining their benefits). If the centrally controlled internet is shutdown or too many crucial componens fail, tor is as useless as a key without lock. With mesh networks you would have to reach a big share of its members to shut it down. The mesh density matters here especially if there are failures in some parts. Mesh networks tend towards 1:1 linked networks, where everybody is physically connected to everybody.

What I thought especially interesting was that they have embraced open source working instead of trying to keep the actual mechanism secret. Some previous attempts to develop similar ideas didn't publish their code and came badly unstuck, according to the piece I linked to in the Guardian.

I guess the people who care about such issues are knowledgeable enough to understand that they wouldn't care about it if they were using non-libre software. After all there could be any kind of 'disable' or similar hook implemented otherwise. The same doesn't go for the people using cryptography.