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In the 5th floor of a comfortable yet anonymous building in Washington, a group composed of roughly 20 young computer scientists, lawyers and sociologists are in the process of achieving the ultimate utopia for libertarian hackers and activists around the world: a system of wireless high speed network, operating on Wi-Fi frequencies without the need to rely on any physically existing IT infrastructure: no telephone relay, cable or satellite.

Instead: a wireless, constantly moving, horizontal, and fully decentralized network, giving no possibility for external monitoring – as traffic will be 100% anonymous and entirely encrypted.

The project is codenamed Commotion, and led by Sascha Meinrath , 37, a longtime internet user and precursor of free citizen-networks – member of the collective of online journalists Indymedia, and of the University of Urbana-Champaign (Illinois), one of the cradles of free software, as well as a founder various start-up NGOs. “I hacked my first autonomous network a decade ago. The Antennas were made with cans”. Since those years of heroism, Meinrath has come a long way. In its current version, Commotion is a very official project: funded by the Open Technology Initiative (OTI), the high-tech department of the New America Foundation, a prestigious organization devoted to the study of the major issues within the American Society – chaired by Eric Schmidt, one of Google bosses.

This gives Meinrath an annual budget of about $ 2.3 million to which an additional $ 2 million was granted by the State Department. In fact, U.S. diplomats are quite intrigued by the idea of a wireless, autonomous, lightweight and easy to install network as they hope to deploy soon on the ground in various emergency situations; such as in areas devastated by war, natural disaster in the poorest regions of the world where people are deprived of modern communication. They also look at it as the ultimate ‘circumvention tool’ in autocracies, as it provides the the best way to help dissidents and activists organize themselves, thwarting police surveillance and censorship.

USB is the key

Of course, the federal grant is not enough to make Commotion a reality. Josh King, 28, the head technical manager with his overly punk look explains that the software effectively turns any Wifi-router, PC, smartphone into a smart relay, equipped to understand the network configuration in real-time, and programmed to sort out which data is to be sent to recipients, and where to re-route it to reach the goal. Commotion can be easily connected to the world: a single device is connected to the Web and everyone else benefits from access: ‘the only tool needed to be part of the network, is a USB key containing the software, which must be installed on every unit.’

Since the spring of 2011, OTI offers a free download of some components of Commotion, with a full working version to be made available in the next few weeks (September) to have it tested by the online community. Nobody knows who is downloading what so far: "If we maintain a list of our visitors, our servers could be hijacked by various governments - including ours." OTI has already been contacted by various Arab Spring activists: "They want to get Commotion, but we’ve been talking them out of doing so. It's too early - It is not secure, it would be very risky to use in a repressive regime."

Meinrath has until the end of 2012 to produce a version for use by the general public. To go faster, OTI also uses systems developed by other teams. For security, Commotion will integrate the programs of the project TOR (The Onion Router ), invented by a group of German and American hackers which circulates on the Internet, generally used to avoid being located. TOR has been particularly used to protect communications from the site Wikileaks.

On wikileaks, Meinrath evokes the "schizophrenia" of the federal government: "Some officials in Washington have been trained during the Cold War, they’re entire career has been about blocking information and monitoring people; However, there are also the young ones, who arrived with Obama: who are all about transparency and freedom of expression. Privately, many State Department officials were angry to see their superiors criticize WikiLeaks so harshly. They say the incident could have been the opportunity for the US to show the world that the country actually supports freedom of expression and transparency in all circumstances."

Telecoms companies are the enemy

OTI is considering integrating other experimental devices, which allow users to share large files to the masses, by make Commotion transit through phone calls made with ordinary mobile phones, in order to transmit data at all frequency ranges, and even 'interconnect multiple neighboring networks: "In July, a team of hackers in a van set up an ephemeral network, covering an area of 60 by 30 km, sitting across the borders of Austria, Croatia and Slovenia. Commotion is the proof that we can provide Internet access to a border area, without having to be physically present in the country. "Concussion is not ready for deployment in areas at risk, but it can already be tested in the States United - for example, in the slums of large cities, whose inhabitants cannot pay for their Internet connections. In Washington, Detroit and California Indian reserves, ITO has been in contact with neighborhood associations and advocacy groups that had begun to create wild wireless networks, offering residents free Internet access. With its expertise and its address book, the OTI team provided people with a decisive technical and financial assistance.

This time, the enemies are the telecom companies with the power to exert pressure on Washington in the aim of killing these citizen initiatives which blow laws and bureaucratic restrictions. Sascha Meinrath is aware of the threat: "Our technology will upset a lot of things, including the United States. If people start building their own networks, the business model of telecom groups will collapse. Commotion will also face the hostility of the Hollywood majors, as it facilitates piracy of copyrighted works. Meinrath is both fatalistic and optimistic on this one: "Whether in the United States, the Middle East or elsewhere in the world, who do you think will set up these alternative networks? We know it’s not the older folks. The teens are in charge of it. They’ll use it to challenge the established order and to share their music and films. This may be negative for rights holders, but the overall balance is very positive."

Gov2u thinks so too – what’s your view on this one?

Source: Yves Eudes for LeMonde.fr

Translated from french by Louis Papaemmanuel

Commotion | Internet | Meinrath | Open Technology Initiative