Hi!
I would just raise concerns about captive portal/splash screen. We had
that for some time and it was much more an issue than worth. It was our
primary reason why people said that the network does not work.
People wondered why things don't work. For example Skype and e-mail. And
the concept that they have first to open some webpage. And then Skype
will start working. This was made easier now since OSes detect captive
portal and display information about that. But still. Smart phones still
have this issue.
It does not work with HTTPS. And we should encourage users to use HTTPS.
So if they are using Google over HTTPS and we have captive portal and
they want to open Google (what is what they do in practice first) over
HTTPS, you have two options:
- you block 443 (and all other ports) until they confirm
- you intercept and have some untrusted SSL shown (which is really bad
to get people used to that)
- you leave through all traffic before the captive portal, you intercept
only 80, but then it is very strange why everything works, except 80
In general captive portal is a very bad moment to display any
information. People want at that moment to connect to the Internet, they
will just click anything and continue. What you would want is to display
something after they finish working with anything. So like captive
portal people maybe read first time, but later on it is useless to use
it for some messages and notices.
And the most important thing: If you have captive portal on nodes, then
every time you want to upgrade captive portal, you have to upgrade
nodes. (You could maybe make some system which syncs this automatically,
but then nodes are getting more and more complicated and you might want
that things are stable and don't change once they are deployed.)
Captive portal also makes things harder when uplink to Internet fails.
So then in such situations people have to confirm the captive portal
just to be able to connect to the network, not even Internet. This is
hard to explain to people. This difference.
Captive portal makes it really hard for Batman roaming between nodes.
So we removed captive portals from all nodes. Currently we don't have
anything. What we are planning is to intercept first request on port 80
on the Internet gateway and redirect to our social info portal called
PiplMesh:
http://dev.wlan-si.net/wiki/PiplMesh
So the idea is that people can still use the network and Internet
normally. You just hijack first request. But it is not a captive portal
(so no button to confirm to get access). Just to display information
about the network. But even more important: to display a portal which is
useful to people using the network. If you have such a portal, then
people will be using and reading things there and you will get people
engaged into the network and then you can communicate two-ways with your
users.
So the idea is that on that portal all connected people to the mesh can
communicate in real-time, share information (like "hey, this event is
happening there and there, come", or even "hay, I am sitting in this
coffee shop, anybody for a chat?" or "I am a CouchSurfer and got
stranded in the city, can anybody offer me a couch for a night?" And you
can share this based on the distance in hops from the node you are
connected to (for example the message about chat is relevant only to the
node you are on, the message about the event is maybe useful to more
people, and CouchSurfer might want to address the whole city). So the
portal again introduces the physical nature of "voice" into virtual
sharing. How load you are, so far you are heard. And distance is hops
between nodes.
And next to that you can also display local relevant information for people.
So the idea is that captive portal influence is minimized (only 80 port,
firs time) and that the content of the portal is made useful to the
people. So that they might even use it outside the captive portal use.
But yes, this is again possible because we have a centralized gateway
and we don't have issues with central services if the network can still
operate without them. They then just add a value to the network and make
adoption and usefulness of the network higher.
(The development of PiplMesh sadly stopped and we will probably rewrite
it from the scratch. But the idea I believe is still valid.)
Mitar
> *Wiki:*
> Hi all!
>
> Thought I might start sharing what's been getting added to our wiki each
> week, as well as general mesh-related links I come across. Feel free to add
> to this thread!
>
>
> - Tunabananas added Mesh/Oakland
> <https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Oakland>for Oakland-specific data.
> Currently this links to a spreadsheet of local> - Tunabananas updated
> organizations [schools, churches, etc] as well as a 157-page document from
> 2009 on the feasibility of providing municipal wifi in Oakland.
> Mesh/Other_mesh_projects<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Other_mesh_projects>with
> more info on the abrupt rise and seeming fall of SF Lan.> - Juul created Mesh/Firmware
> <https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Firmware>with lots of ideas and plans
> for the firmware we'll be developing for the> - MaxB added some system configuration details on the
> mesh!
> Mesh/BATMAN-adv<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/BATMAN-adv>page.
> - Tunabananas updated Meeting
> Minutes<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/04_July_2013>with last week's
> minutes.
> - Tunabananas created Mesh/Naming
> <https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Naming>to document potential names for
> our group.
> - Juul created Mesh/Bylaws <https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Bylaws> - we
> could **really** use some feedback and input on these potential bylaws
> so we can become a 501(c)3!> - Mitar added information about wlan-slovenia to
> Mesh/Other_mesh_projects<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Other_mesh_projects>
>
> *Some recent news on mesh:*
> <http://www.networkcomputing.com/next-generation-data-center/servers/mesh-networking-revival-sparked-by-nsa-p/240157635>
>
> - Mesh Networking Revival Sparked By NSA PRISM
> Program<http://www.networkcomputing.com/next-generation-data-center/servers/mesh-networking-revival-sparked-by-nsa-p/240157635>
> <http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516571/build-your-own-internet-with-mobile-mesh-networking/#comments>
> - Build Your Own Internet with Mobile Mesh
> Networking<http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516571/build-your-own-internet-with-mobile-mesh-networking/#comments>
> - The Serval mobile mesh project is currently
> crowdfunding<http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/speak-freely>
> - Stop overbroad patents that would put limitations on the progress of
> mesh technology!<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/mesh-networking-good-overbroad-patents-bad>
>> _______________________________________________
> ---------
> Jenny
> http://jennyryan.net
> http://thepyre.org
> http://thevirtualcampfire.org
> http://technomadic.tumblr.com
>
> `~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
> "Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories."
> -Laurie Anderson
>
> "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
> -Hannah Arendt
>
> "To define is to kill. To suggest is to create."
> -Stéphane Mallarmé
> ~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
>
>
>
http://mitar.tnode.com/
https://twitter.com/mitar_m
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