Posted on 08/21/2013 8:50:45 PM PDT by Errant
Exactly. The HAMs would form the backbone. The local BBS's responsible for the dissemination and collecting private packets for uploading to the backbone.
If we could set up dedicated local BBS’ for communication we could use them for other things in the meantime, like running NetPanzer games against each other. lol. Just to make sure they work.
I don’t know much about setting up a local BBS though.
I guess it’s time to get smart and start doing all my banking and bill paying in person or by mail.
Modems are dicey at over 28.8 over many VOIP systems; you certainly won’t be getting “x2” speeds over long distance.
It might work better for the local BBS's to do the calling in to the backbone/HAM BBS's and exchange packets. That way you wouldn't need for the backbone to have designated subs. And if a backbone node went down, the locals could contact the next one on their list, if the first contact failed.
The weak link will be the dialup connections. Too easily traced if a takeover occurred, or phones taken out by EMP.
That is true, but I was thinking more along the lines of a tyrannical government than an EMP. You are probably correct, and I was thinking of HAM operators personally logging into the BBS to upload the files and data they received. Having it done automatically by the BBS computer is definitely an idea though.
That wouldn't be that hard to do. I wrote a piece of code like this that ran as a service on windows servers and contacted the main database clear across the country many times a day. Only data since the last time stamp was exchanged. Need to add a few bells and whistles like logging, recovery, and notifications.
It would be easy peasey to do 60 words a minute of data on shortwave sent as simple morse. To encode/decode only a simple microcontroller would be needed. Use FFT to detect the audio tone and simple programming to handle the morse.
Figure a one dollar uC, a 4 dollar LCD display and a few pennies worth of caps/resistors/etc. Store the received text in the flash of the uC and display it on the LCD.
60wpm is slow but over a 24hr period that would be a considerable amount of textual data. Simulcast on 80 40 and 20 meters for all day reception.
FreeRepublic could do with an encrypted P2P backup system. It could be done as a FireFox plugin.
What you are describing is a form of a “store and forward” network, which has fallen out of favor due to the incredible bandwidth we have today.
Better to be your own banker. :) At least be prepared to get by for some time without the need of a bank. I see where the Indian rupee has dropped 40% in recent days. That’s going to leave a mark, since it’s a poor country to begin with.
A security conference discussing the “looming security crisis”... go figure.
There’s no cure for carelessness, negligence, and Manning.
That was at the “Black Hat” conference, the Comdex for information security.
Best set up as a mesh network of Linksys routers (the Linux models) or modified cellphones/tablets. Every person to set up a node would extend the network. External antennas are simple to build for these frequencies...best to put the device in a watertight container at the antenna to avoid feedline loss. Pipe DC up to it with a twisted pair.
An easy to build discone would be a good choice for the antenna as it is so easy to make and tolerant of mistakes as it is so broad-band.
Modified old cellphone/tablet/router up 30ft on a pole with a discone and you extend the network for miles. Just putting the device in a plastic bag and feeding power to it would extend the network a mile or so if placed in a high spot like an attic or chimney.
Everyone has a few old cellphones and chargers.
Now your getting to an ad-hoc wireless network. Something that would draw a lot of attention from “them”. That is very interesting on a local basis though, in order to reach the BBS if the phone system is taken out.
The original idea was a way to keep communicating nationally if the “kill switch” happens. My idea is for FReepers to keep in touch and sharing information, not the general public.
That is why we would have FReeper HAMs able to send each other data packets and upload these packets on local BBS systems.
Back in the day a buddy and I ran the only BBS in Cape Girardeau MO.
We also ran the town’s only dial-a-joke :-)
Everyone called my BBS. I had online textual games and a popular chat-with-sysop feature.
I got some of those really cheap phone lines installed that have free incoming calls but by the minute outgoing...were 5 dollars a month each.
I wonder if you could that again? How much would they cost now?
I checked out a site about BBS boards and some of them had 200+ nodes. I don’t know if that’s internet or phone nodes though.
The world needs to move on to elliptic curve cryptography.
Trouble is the company that owns Blackberry holds patents on ECC.
http://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/elliptic_curve.shtml
You neglected to mention the requisite one-writes.
I don’t even know what that means. I am not into the technical details of this, it’s simply an idea of keeping FR going offline if the need arises.
It’s an old-school encryption technique I recall reading about years ago. I think it involves a very long, randomized key of data that is married to the message being encrypted/decrypted.
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