"Mesh Network" app example

[Ocean]

http://www.technologyreview.com/new...-app-for-iphone-needs-no-internet-connection/

i just downloaded an app, and im impressed with its functionality. it lets you chat between devices without an internet or cellular connection.

If you’re using FireChat, its “nearby” chat room lets you exchange messages with other users within 100 feet without sending data via your cellular provider.

i have no use for it, but if this tech expands to voice calls and is secure, and can hop from cellphone to cellphone to another cellphone, this would be awesome. ive always hoped that cell towers would eventually be replaced by peer to peer.

 

[RanceJustice]

For those who are interested in mesh networks, there are quite a few established projects that are designed with software freedom, security, privacy, and other positive elements in mind. Some of them can be found linked from www.prism-break.org - an excellent catalog of free and open source software listing various tasks and proprietary applications, and what free and open source, privacy focused elements exist. Some of these projects are geared towards servers and the technologically expert user to set them up, but an increasing amount of projects are designed to offer mesh networking with relative ease, sometimes right out of the box.


Mesh networks have proven invaluable everywhere from technology conferences to activism in parts of the world where there has been a disaster or insecurity. With the many threats today of monitored communications on behalf of governments or monied private interests, mesh networks can provide another layer of options. As more and more of these projects use and support free and open implementations of mesh networking, the easier it will be for end users to select the mesh networks they wish to access.