AlaCloud.net
From Florida Free Culture Wiki
AlaCloud.net was an attempt at a community wireless Internet project in Gainesville.
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[edit] Hardware/Software
The principle idea was to create a wireless mesh built with cheap commodity consumer hardware, specifically the Linksys WRT models and compatible Buffalo models (WHR-G54S,WHR-HP-G54) which can run the OpenWRT Linux distribution. The testing software package used was the Freifunk firmware which includes an easy to administer web interface, the latter was then modified with Alacloud specific templates. There was an emphasis on Buffalo models since Linksys often changed the parts in their G and GS series to differentiate them from the GL series. For example, revision 5 and above of the G series had reduced RAM and reliable use and flashing was quite difficult. The software that actually creates the mesh, meaning that each client can talk to any other client within range directly instead of relying on a hierarchy of access points, is the OLSR daemon. If one used for example a laptop and in range of one of these routers and did not have this client running one was still able to connect and use it since the ad-hoc connection employed simply defaulted to the default behavior and one would get an IP address via DHCP so no manual configuration on a client was not necessary. On the other hand of course running the OLSR daemon can improve network performances due to several links and improve the coverage of the mesh for others. This client was available for Windows, OS X and Linux. It looks like this client will in due time be superceded by the B.A.T.M.A.N. protocol.
[edit] Networking/Routers
The network itself did not use any encryption to lower barriers of entry and not to induce further overhead. Users were encouraged to protect themselves by using end-to-end encryption (e.g. SSL/TLS for email, Jabber for IM with SSL, https wherever possible etc.) on all their services and if possible use a VPN connection. This was important since not only would every passerby be able to sniff the packages transmitted but also because every router would have to be considered a potential attacker since they were operated by users themselves and encryption like WEP and WPA would have terminated at these unsecured hosts.
To run a router one had to flash the firmware on a matching router. This was in some cases possible through the web interface but most easily normally accomplished with tftp/atftp and simply putting the matching binary onto the router during the boot phase. Then at the minimum one had to set a static IP address and the correct ESSID and channel (i.e. alacloud.net, 10). The IP addresses were simply entered into a spreadsheet by hand from the 10.10.0.0 subnet and consisted of /28 or larger groups of addresses to allow the routers to automatically assign addresses via DHCP to clients and let them be accessibly directly instead of NATing them behind that router.
[edit] Proposed services
One of the core ideas of the project was to provide the network and give others the possibility to try to build inventive, new applications on it and the ideas ranged from geolocation sensitive services to dynamic localized social networks, similar to Apple's Bonjour services.
[edit] Problems
Several problems hindered the adoption of the project. Apart from bridging geographical areas and FCC regulations on home-made antennas the unclear legal situation on subjects such as redistributing consumer Internet connections to the network as well as possible necessary compliances with CALEA regulations (those also seemed technically impossible) if classified as a telecommunications provider and the unclear facts on how to avoid the latter.
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