Ameba
free networks are paths through the woods paths that lead interesting places grow paths that lead nowhere disappear
reseaux libres sont des chemins dans les bois les chemins qui menant a des endroits interessants grandir les chemins qui ne menent nulle part disparaitre
ideas-art-information on free networks of all kinds...
This site is for spreading/sharing/creating information about free networks and communication - decentralised, community run alternatives to commercially 'provided' telecommunication. Linking existing projects, trying out new ideas, and questioning what we really need.
Before trying to re-create what is currently available commercially, a critical approach is taken. Identifying problems, such as that computer use pacifies us physically; and centralised communication networks encourage interactions which are abstracted from our physical surroundings.
Communications are essential to our social organisation. The ideas presented here focus on becoming more autonomous, to enable us to move from the cities to more rural or isolated areas, gaining access to land to grow food and medicinal plants and having time and space to develop our ideas.
Add whatever else you/me/we find interesting. Little attempt is made to separate practical information from art/ideas/dreams, which to some may seem disorganised...
An idea is to use modified radio equipment to link different kinds of existing networks and adapt to the chaotic situations we live in. Existing projects seem to be shifting towards using higher an higher frequencies as the bands become become more crowded and people want more bandwidth (5GHz etc). Another approach could be to use lower frequencies and lower bandwidth, for a more robust communication solution for rural areas and allowing more ad-hoc 'random' connectivity (rather than point-to-point links).
The physical and geographical limitations of using decentralised radio networks could be an advantage, encouraging us to interact locally, with a network topology which reflects our capability to interect physically. There is still the possiblity of long distance communication, but one is more likely to find things which are geographically nearby.
This is a wiki (using mediawiki), please add, change or translate stuff, put comments images links whatever... Because of problems with spam, registration is now required to be able to edit pages.
Paper versions of parts of the site are also in distribution. So please add ideas you want to spread.
- community run communication main article including sections on amateur radio, pirate radio, wifi networks and software defined radio
- free networks short zine introduction to idea of free networks (french/enghlish) Note that this consists of images and may take time to load.
- 430mhz data transfer a project being tested - like normal 2.4GHz wifi, but lower frequency to not need a line-of-sight link
- changing the internet groups and projects for making the existing internet more free, as well as tools for those who do not have constant access to internet.
- mousing about zine about city life
- alternative energy ideas
- other ideas and links
more: urban regeneration drawings / biscuits pictures / magic / bad songs
this site is hosted at ehion.com and was previously using dokuwiki old dokuwiki site, and before that it was hosted on wikispaces, and before that a static html site on a server called Hades. It will maybe switch soon to 'moinmoin' wiki software because it uses flat files rather than a database, easier for editing directly on the server.
