Erstellt am: 29. 1. 2011 - 10:58 Uhr

Today's Webtip: Free the web?

some people are working on ways to take the internet out of the hands of governments and corporations.

The internet has long been hailed as a revolutionary tool for individuals and democracy. The rise of the social web has made it easier than ever for individuals to avoid the classic bottleneck and one way communication of traditional media in order to efficiently and quickly organize during times of trouble.

Unfortunately there is one big problem with the way the internet works. It's still controlled by governments (ever heard of the internet kill switch?) and corporations. And when they decide too much communication is going on, they can still shut it down.

Just like Egypt did last night. It's an action that has been hailed as a first in the history of the internet, but I am willing to bet good money that it won't be the last.

Fortunately, some clever people have spent some cycles thinking about how to avoid this problem. One classic example is X-Net, the revolutionary network described in Cory Doctorows book Little Brother. Some real world examples are also being developed, with solutions ranging from simple and portable file sharing solutions (like the rather nifty Pirate Box) to mesh network solutions that would at least provide internal connectivity and take advantage of what limited access to the internet could be found, like the Austrian www.funkfeuer.at and the Freifunk movement.

Combine that with some free dial-up access, like people have been setting up for Egypt and some basic connectivity can be maintained that would be pretty difficult to kill. Unless the government was willing to completely isolate the country. something I, unfortunately, can also imagine.

You can read up on some other projects trying to solve this problem in an article on www.readwriteweb.com

Or you can jump in and help with a project that is going on right now at www.openmeshproject.org