On the train from Leeds back to Glasgow it wasn’t long before I tired of retuning the radio what seemed like every two minutes, as broadcast frequencies changed. A pocket shortwave receiver is all very well, when what you really need on such a trip is a good FM radio with RDS that can automagically skip to the next frequency as the journey progresses. So I decided to get out the Nokia N800, freshly loaded with Kismet, and fire up an Xterm to see if any wireless networks could be found on the North Yorkshire Moors. And much to my surprise I did manage to spot quite a few networks as the train passed through small villages.
The photo on the right isn’t that exciting but you can see a few WLANs in Kismet. Information that hopefully nobody will object to being made public. I.e. simply the fact an SSID exists, somewhere… (this stuff is in public ’stumbling’ databases anyhow) And I should point out I didn’t associate with any networks or search for keys etc.
One interesting discovery was the most commonly occurring SSID of ‘Ribblenet’. And a quick spot of Googling on my return has revealed this to be a community wireless network (<– check the topography and node link maps!) based on mesh networking. Very cool indeed. What would have been even cooler is if the N800 had support for AODV routing as used by the Locust World mesh nodes. And could have joined the mesh, updating routes in an ad-hoc fashion, as new links are made and old ones broken. Of course to attempt to do this would have required the permission of the guys who run the network. And in any case would have likely enjoyed limited if any success due to the speed of the train and relatively sparse distribution of mesh nodes along the route.
However there is a port of the daemon for another ad-hoc routing protocol, OLSR, available for Maemo. And this has got me to thinking how it would be fun to try it out with a bunch of N770/N800 owners, seeing how far you could extend a fixed connection. And how you could dynamically represent the state of the mesh graphically on the devices, and optionally also from the network edge out to the Internet. Add Placelab (if Java can be got to work on Maemo - I’ve such heard mumblings…) also to extract data on the positioning and trajectory of nodes and you could have the basis for an interesting geeky art project: factoring together received signal strength of peers, link states, and calculated position, speed and trajectory. In addition to finding interesting ways to interpret and present this information, the system could also interact with the device owners. Wouldn’t it be fun if the system could instruct people to take new positions in order that the mesh network be optimised for a particular use. E.g. a TCP connection is set up between two endpoints, the system looks at the current network configuration, and then in a bid to optimise topology, via Flite the N800 nodes instruct their human agents to assume a new position. Network connections in the virtual world being used to orchestrate a dance in the physical.
Getting back to more practical uses it would be nice to think that one day mesh networking capabilities will be built into most devices, and in a secure and robust (as it can be) fashion. Such that we no longer, or rather less frequently, have to worry about being in close proximity to access points. And if we reach that stage I can see an exemplar use for technology developed as part of a research project I was involved in a number of years ago whilst at Mysterian: MMAPPS (co-incidentally my current employer BT were lead research partner). The work sought to find ways to encourage altruistic actions in peer-to-peer networks, discourage leeching, and thus foster sustainability. So in this case you would say gain credit for being a node in a mesh and providing routing resource, and be less tempted to turn off your device when not using it directly. Credit accumulated could be then spent on network services. With for example basic network access being priced slightly higher than rates of reward for participation in routing, such that the operator covers costs and turns a profit. As banks work with interest rates for saving vs. lending, but without illegal penalty charges and nonsense constructs such as ‘clearing times’.
Images (top - bottom): Nokia N800 w/iGo BT keyboard, N800 running Kismet (detail), about to cross the mighty Ribblehead viaduct.
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Tags: N800, Devices by andrew
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So I finally got round to building a package for the Maemo (bora) build of Hercules, and setting up a Debian repository for it and future builds of other stuff for Maemo. You can add the repository by clicking here, and then find Hercules under user/Emulators in Application manager. Or if you prefer you can just download the package here. Since this is my first attempt at building a Debian package any feedback would be much appreciated.
