Freedom Boxes and Social P2P

[Om G]

Hey all,

I'm very glad to see like minds still talking about geo-aware social peer devices and many thanks for the links to Ted Nelson, he's really speaking my language! We, as a species are so well tuned to physical spatial awareness.

The freedom box assumes individual nodes, which seems necessary.

Have you seen Tethr? Aaron Huslage is building a lightweight networking appliance that provides a community GSM and WiFi connectivity to the wider net. More details here: http://emergentbydesign.com/2011/06/18/contact-spotlight-series-builders-of-the-next-net/

But basically, it is a small box that a community would strap to a pole and clip on a solar panel to get GSM+WiFi for line of sight and that box is hooked up to whatever data capability exists from sat phone to dialup or packet radio.

I really like this idea and I think it informs our discussion. We have been looking at ways to enable community through a group of free nodes that would self assemble, but a community could also coalesce around a shared appliance that provides cell+wireless and even data management for their collective individual resources that would comprise community 'intelligence'. Especially in locations without proliferation of desktops (i.e. most of the world)

Sociologically, I think it would be really healthy to have neighbors intentionally sharing information foraging for locally relevant consumption.

Om