Mesh/02 May 2017

people's open network hacknight - 02 May 2017

intros

• jehan: I'm the guy who brings the five-pack. I've been working on the email server and sorta made some progress with some help from marc. running for @peoplesopen.network.
  • also researching ipv4/ipv6 for fun
    • marc: going down rabbit holes... both email & ipv6 are headaches
• daniel: what about spam filters etc?
  • jehan: using mail-in-a-box that has a bunch of spam filter stuff
• grant: working on the firmware, kinda done. need to do more testing on the extender node firmware. also messing around with the esp286's a bunch. programming in C and learning a lot
• scott: no updates
• bullitt: playing with ssb (secure scuttlebutt) on raspis and such. not working for me. last weekend got on a roof and helped with installing a physical node.
• jenny: there was $400 in our paypal account that paypal was gonna steal due to inactivity but saved it. ~$169 for officers and directors insurance
• lesley: i am lesley and this past week helped install a roofnode. substack helped me get a patchwork pub server running on the sudo room sever (the one hosted in sudo room and accessible from the internet)
• eve: only useful thing i've done this week is get an adapter so i can help daniel with ?. playing with arduino's. wanna make it flash pretty lights
• jeff: also trying to set up a patchwork pi thing. interested in roof mounting
• jonas: i'm not sure what you do. i have interest in mesh networking and have been using esp8266 for two years. a year ago i wrote a lisp interpreter for it. i really think mesh networking would be interested. i want to use the esp to build a computer keyboard from scratch using wood keys and microswitches. encoding is done by diodes. trying to build a circuit board. i want to build a wifi home computer from an ESP.
• daniel: i'm helping with little things here and there. tonight I'm planning to continue working on the equipment we got donated last week which is to update the wireless controller and update all the APs via the controller. I was mentioning to jenny earlier today that with this donation we have the opportunity to install APs all over the building (we have 28).
  • jehan: think it's a great idea, no problem w/ proprietary software they're just APs
• juul: worked on DisasterRadio a bit this week. LoRa radios connected to esp8266. can't use two serial ports simultaneously. made a telnet console and implemented a web console. now you can console in and as soon as you open the telnet or web console it talks to the chip. dhcp working, dns for the most part. also a web server serving up a web app. so the plumbing is working! now just to deploy a small chat and/or map app.
  • jehan: doesn't it have a super long range?
    • juul: urban range around 3 miles. low bandwidth, very low power. 900 mhz, small packet size. Can use it for mapping out resources in a disaster scenario.
  • jonas:
  • markus: part of omni welcoming group. attending hardware hacknight.
• Marc: $900-1500/month for gigabit connection from LMI, can install hardware on the roof
  • jehan: lot of money off the bat. network not in a very advanced state, can get more practice building out network around the omni
  • lesley: cumulatively that's $12-18K/yr, what about instead investing in a server that would host some of the most commonly visited sites on the network
    • marc: wouldn't cost any money, we have stacks of unused servers
  • jehan: more you buy the less you pay, economically logical
• main link would be gigabit, spread it out at like 300mbps connections. can spread it out enough that we can get enough people to donate monthly. there'd be a lag, maybe 6 months, where we'd be paying out of pocket
  • jeff: how many people to make it economical? like 20 people?
  • jehan: lots of interest but not that much geographical
  • promising leads other than LMI: BART and Laney College

agenda

entity structure

• straw poll +1s for OOC 501c3: Eve, Lesley, Grant, Jorrit
• reservations: juul
• jenny will ask Jesse this week and report back at next meeting

breakout groups

• patchwork: lesley/bullitt/jenny/jefdaj
• gate: daniel/eve
• debug front door computer: lesley/jenny/jake
• ESP boards and related: juul/jonas/grant/scott

action items

• ping spaghettinight mailing list [jenny]
• contact IT person at Peralta Colleges re: Laney node - Daniel will investigate
• get a panorama from LMI - ??
• email Jesse re: taking over OOC or submitting a 1023EZ app [jenny]
• send out login instruction for email server [jehan]

misc link dump

• Mapping businesses by neighborhood to reach out to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oAehFc60w-hS4rhk0ZZhqb_IDqNsb8TopPoBqXhZZdU/edit#gid=0