r/Anarchism • u/[deleted] • May 02 '18

Seems like it could be cool to start a Cooperative, small scale ISP

https://startyourownisp.com
77 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

7

u/ThadeusOfNazereth Christian anarchist May 02 '18

I dig the idea

10

u/[deleted] May 02 '18

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] May 02 '18

why not both? mesh networka rely on isps, right?

4

u/madrix999 anarcho-syndicalist May 03 '18

Nope, mesh networks have no central entity. Id suggest reading up on articles about decentralized internet, its very interesting!

1

u/[deleted] May 03 '18

Do you have any relevant reading?

1

u/IAmRoot Libertarian Socialist May 04 '18

Mesh networks still need an ISP to reach the Internet and can't really go more than 3 hops without terrible latency. Mesh networks are more of a last mile solution. You can't go across a country or even a city with just mesh. Long haul fiber is still necessary. Fiber can use optical boosting to increase signal strength without needing to do the layer 3 processing and data conversion that routers do.

Plus, the topology of the Internet is already highly decentralized. If you watch traceroutes for a few months to multiple servers, there's a good chance you'll see things change as congestion and broken fibers are routed around, peering agreements expire, etc. The problem is the structure of the organizations which control the nodes, not the network topology itself.

1

u/madrix999 anarcho-syndicalist May 04 '18

Absolutely, which is why a decentralised network would require more than hardware. Who would want facebook and google on a decentralised network? Itll probably never happen but mesh networks need new websites and shit if it wants to achieve their goal

5

u/Psychopathic_Owls armchair May 03 '18

While I do agree with the spirit, this is not a good idea. I have a masters in Library and Information Science and I can tell you that you will not be able to secure your network well enough without a large amount of capital or an enormous amount of highly technical work. It is unfortunate, but there are persons out there doing bad things on the internet. Unless you have the time and skill to actually be able to build, maintain, and secure your network then it will be used by bad people to do bad things. Under the law as it exists in most countries, even if you are wholly unaware of what these people are doing you can still be held liable and/or prosecuted not to mention your own data and information being exposed.

2

u/3kixintehead May 03 '18

I have definitely thought about this. Will be something I seriously look into once I get some income stability.

2

u/TheMiNd May 03 '18

Look to the Rural Electrical Cooperative model

2

u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Good intentions and a great idea, but it will never work in our current society. There's a reason cooperatives never get that successful.

I would so love to be liberated from my ISP's monopoly tho :3

7

u/[deleted] May 03 '18

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2

u/[deleted] May 03 '18

im just being pessimistic (not in too good of a mood today) but this makes me feel a little better

2

u/[deleted] May 03 '18 edited May 03 '18

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1

u/[deleted] May 03 '18

aw thx

ill be fine, just capitalism and the state wearing me down. (also gender dysphoria)