A Decentralized Neighborhood I.S.P Concept Built For Threefold

#1

                              A Decentralized Neighborhood I.S.P Concept Built For Threefold

      This document is meant to serve as a thought provoking assessment of the current state of the network and how it could be used in its current state to allow for the develop of neighborhood sized networks to increase the accessibility of the internet for underserved populations. This document is theoretical and while many of these concepts have in production examples available for assesment the overall viability of this plan, it is generally untested.

      I also think it is very important to acknowledge the individuals truly responsible for this plans exsistence as i am simply putting together the pieces of decentralized work already available.

  • The group responsible for the develop of the model for hosting Web Gateways that bridge yggdrasil/planetary to the internet are the people from Mashmesh
  • The group responsible for the GUI management interface of Web Gateways are the Guys from the Cockpit Project
  • The grout responsible for Opnsense
  • The group responsible for OpenWrt

      The intent of this plan is to provide a goal of 200 Mbit internet connections and on grid VPS hosting to ten homes/business in proximity to a host’s site as these users primary means of connecting to the internet. This network will provide encrypted communications between the end users home routers and a secure web server hosted on grid that serves as the interchange between your decentralized network and the larger body of the internet. The basic concept of this network represented visually,

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As shown in this diagram, The “Web Gateways” are the heart of the machine. The web Gateways serve a few different purposes.

  • Their primary role of the gateway is to allow the exachange of end user data to the internet, outside of the Neighborhood Host’s network, This is accomplished by maintaining all communications between the Neighborhood host, end users and the gateway within the Planetary network. This outsources the processing power required for the encryption and decryption of gateway traffic and prevents any monitoring of the content of the traffic being transmitted across the network and limits the visible connections seen by the ISP to the connections to the on grid web gateways.

The next Level is the Neighborhood I.S.P’s Equipment, this model emphasizes the minimal amount of equipment needing to be purchased and deployed for initial functionality,

  • The model supports both wireless and wired transmission of data between mesh clients. equipment availability is very location specific, this model allows for the use of bare metal hardware with software that is openly available such as Openwrt and Opnsense. The principal equipment required by a Neighborhood captain would include a Router, A switch and the equipment nessecary to reach the homes around them with a speed that is relevant to their area whether that be wireless radios or copper connections.

The final level of the network is the End User Access Point, this is device designed to receive the connection from the neighbothood hosts routing infrastructure and produce a usable private subnet on the interface

  • these can range from low-cost devices that can be powered by a solar cell like the GL-INET MT1300 “beryl”, all the way up to a full server depending on the capacity needed, the important information is these can be made with readily available equipment that already ships running openwrt. The principal equipment required for a mesh client location is a router and the equipment required to reach the closest mesh client whethere that be wireless or by copper cabling and a device capable of accessing a remote desktop or performing the task they into, based on network strength.
    • Instructions for building a D.I.Y Mesh node from Massachusets mesh.

      While there are groups already deploying networks like this the Threefold grid adds a layer of value and accessibility that is unmatched currently. the decentralized compute power that is provided allows for those in underserved areas to have on demand access to nearly unlimited compute resources, with only the equivalent equipment of a thin client, if all they require is acess to the web for information, schooling, news or entertainment this may be all they require. This also allows for people requiring greater compute to invest in hosting their primary workload in the cloud, on the grid. Giving them the benefits of the internet connection, reliability, and performance of machine that may be in a different country then they are while minimizng their onsite investments.

  • For a business this may represent having access to host databases or web servers or being able to provide a more interactive experience to customers.

  • For a school this may reprsent being able to deploy vms to teach students, and only pay for them for as long as they need them with no required licenses or additional “commercial fees”.

  • For an individual this may represent access to a cad software, or photoshop.

I truly hope that I have drafted this in a way that it is easily understandable and gives the community some ideas on how Threefold can be molded from the substrate that exist today into a technology that will usher in the next digital age.

-ParkerS/Drew Smith, Just an Idealistic Farmer.

2 Likes
[GEP] Expanded Solution Provider Model [Closed]
#2

Thanks.

Before I dig deeper… Do I understand correctly that the basic idea is to connect a locality of different businesses/homes to a single upstream connection from an ISP?

If so, this almost certainly runs against the ISP’s terms of service.

#3

Your kidding right? Please go find someone else’s work to troll.

#4

I’m not kidding Drew. Why so hostile? I’m part of this community and I’m just adding my perspective having lived and worked in developing countries you try to find solutions for.

I asked you a question. Please answer it.

If the answer is yes, than the terms of service of most ISP’s are prohibitive. If the answer is no, then OK!

I am not the one who is creating problems here. These problems are already there, and I just present them to you. And better I do this now, then a local authority much further down the road.

You are obviously a man of talents, and I hate to see you working on stuff which cannot be used in the real World.

Of course you can try to talk with ISP’s to come to an agreement about things, but in many developing countries ISP’s offering are high bandwidth connections are (partially) state owned, so then we are back to the discusion we have in the other treat.

The fiber provider in Sri Lanka (SLT) is state owned, so within two handshakes I have to sit at the desk of the Minister to get this done.

These are real challenges. Challenges you might not see from behind you keyboard.

#6

No I have never seen or heard of a single internet reseller anywhere in the world that relies on a single connection. Saying “we’ll someone would have to comply with TOS” isn’t adding to the conversation. Obviously anyone deploying this kind of project would have to find internet that they can use this way. I do not intend to engage with you any further as I don’t feel like it is a worthwhile use of my very limited time.

#7

You don’t seem to understand, so I will spell it out for you…

In the document you asked comments on, you sketched a neighbourhood captain (individual or company) making Internet access available to third parties using a single (or several) upstream connection of an ISP.

In legal terms this means either reselling the Internet connection, or making available the Internet connection to third parties which is prohibited in the ToS of most ISP’s Worldwide (check the ToS or your own ISP).

In the Use Clause, mostly something like this is mentioned (this is from an ISP in California USA):

Provider’s Internet Service is for Customer’s personal use and is to be used only by Customer, Customer’s employees, and/or members of Customer’s immediate family residing with Customer or working for Customer (“Authorized Users”) at the address where service is authorized and configured by Provider consistent with the Service Plan of this Agreement. Customer will at all times, until terminated, remain responsible for all use of Provider’s Internet Service delivered under Customer’s account. Customer agrees not to resell, redistribute, network, assign, transfer or sublicense Customer’s access to Provider’s Internet Service in any manner. Customer agrees not to use Provider’s Internet Service to operate as an Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) or to operate any other business enterprise in competition with Provider’s Internet Service, including Customer agreeing not to use Provider’s Internet Service for any type of business or commercial enterprise, including (but not limited to) the provision of Internet access to others or provision of a server site for FTP, Telnet, RLOGIN, electronic mail, web hosting or other comparable applications. Customer agrees that Customer’s violation of this Section shall authorize Provider, in its sole discretion, to immediately disconnect Provider’s Internet Service to Customer and terminate this Agreement without notice.

You are welcome not to discuss ToS of ISP’s your solution is dependent on, or just ignore it, but that doesn’t help you, the people you are building for or the TF Project.

You yourself told me you were inspired to start this thread in order to help me with my plight in SL. I’m just saying that your idea will not work, not in Sri Lanka or pretty much anywhere else without the need of becoming an ISP yourself.

Sorry for this, I wish it to be different, but ignoring reality doesn’t make it disappear.

I will leave it at this. Time for others to chime in and to either confirm or reject what I am stating here.

I’m ok to be wrong, and you can hate me for being wrong.

But don’t hate me for being right.

#8

This is simply untrue, my personal connection does not forbade it and I know of multiple wisps here in the states that are resellers. I even a present a project that doing this already.

It’s not that I don’t want to discuss TOS. It’s that I’m choosing not to engage with someone who has made it his purpose in the project to try and poke holes in anything he can. I provided clearly documented examples of this exact model already in production.

You may want to assess the tos for business grade service.

Furthermore it seems you are likely the most involved Sri Lanka farmer, why haven’t you presented any plans for internet there? You sure seem to know exactly what will and won’t work.

They way you talk down to people is simply disqusting, you really think I have this deployed and and running at my house without first reading TOS?

#9

Drew,

I’m not a farmer at all. I represent several family offices who have the ability to invest tens of millions of dollars in promising projects.

We started investing in TFT over 5 years ago, have continued to do so by supporting the TFT and we where ready to invest further in L0 Validators, while we also have been evaluating projects closely related to TF which could benefit this project.

As such, it’s my task to be critical. It’s not my purpose to poke holes into projects, but to see if any holes are there and to see how the project reacts; recognising, accepting and filling these holes.

You may want to assess the tos for business grade service.

I did that, and these ToS’s of course allow connection of LAN’s and associated equipment, however only in so far the LAN belongs to the same legal entity. Your proposal reflects several different legal entities to be connected under one contract.

They way you talk down to people is simply disqusting, you really think I have this deployed and and running at my house without first reading TOS?

Again you make this personal, which is downright unprofessional.

I can only say that the ToS’s I have examined in developing countries don’t support connecting third parties under one contract. The connection can be used solely by the legal entity signing the contract. And just doing the things you want to do, doesn’t make them compliant.

Compliancy is one of the factors I’m concerned about when evaluating investment opportunities and validity.

So far this projects seems to respond exceedingly bad to questions, critique, challenges, different points of view and advice.

I have seen enough…

#10

Your talk of how much money you represent does not intimidate me. Believe me when I say I can assure you that the stakes I play with every day are far more extreme then angering a rich person. I encourage you to depart and let the people who have the vision to make a better tomorrow do their work.

So your not farming, your not developing and you represent other peoples money. Everything you have suggested has an effect to move closer to centralized structure. There’s no way for the isp to even be aware of this happening outside of them being directly told. If you really want to get technical your reselling your internet everytime someone deploys a workload on a node and uses it to access the internet this is no different.

I hope you have seen enough to take your leave and go find something to be a part of that makes you happy and fulfilled.

#11

“The idea economy is a conversation. Try to channel or control that conversation and you will stop the chatter.”
― A.E. Samaan

      The most important value of the Threefold project is its decentralization and lack of barriers to access for an accessible, scalable and affordable network/compute exchange. This exchanges empowers anyone, anywhere to test, develop or deploy in a completely autonomous virtual data center environment with a payment system that is accessible in every corner of the world to anyone regardless of their status. This infrastructures provides independent rewards for each level of contribution to the decentralized grid and allows for individuals contribute resources, knowledge or ideas in and inclusive environment. At this time individuals can become

Farmers provide network and compute to the capacity and be rewarded for that capacity in TFT

  • Farmers can use plug and play certified nodes or any existing x86_64 hardware to earn rewards, There are hardware limitations to some of the more advanced reward programs and its advisable to use as late generation hardware as possible to stay competitive with other farms offerings, as with windows 11, and many other modern applications TPM 2.0 offers huge benefits to ZOS and its advisable to aim for having them in your deployments in the future.

Solutions Providers develop software that automates deployments on the grid to receive reward for the resulting utilization of their solutions.

  • By creating user facing solutions that utilize grid compute power developers can decentralize their work allowing their clients to deploy workloads in one of thousands of locations near them without having to interact with grid substrate. A perfect example of this is Zonaris.com who has developed the infrastructure to receive fiat payments for deployments hosted on the grid ultimately giving their business ready access to 2000 servers that they only need to utilize on as needed basis. Developing technology solutions like this allows individuals to reduce the operating cost of their solutions and provide a lower end user cost while maintaining access to a highly scalable infrastructure with few limitations.

      Where these to roles come into a true synergistic effect is when all of the infrastructure is utilized with small cells, communities or groups, come together to utilize the entirety of the threefold infrastructure. Threefold nature as a compute and networking substrate can make it very difficult to envision a truly deployed solution. So this may take some imagination, but It truly provides the infrastructure for any local group to establish their own local internet infrastructure. That group can establish a local network that encompassed their intended infrastructure, and then have multiple connections brought to a single site and use their local network to distribute the internet infrastructure. Where the grid sets this apart from doing this in traditional ways is the additional resources and layers the grid can provide in this solution allowing you to automate the process of creating the mesh network, billing and deployment of resources.

With integration of the grid a single resource whether that be a individual, a governmental entity or a business can create a localized system where anyone can connect to their local network and have internet access as if they were connected to the their own connection while receiving access to the resources of the grid with payment solutions in their local currency. This happens in multiple layers

  • User Facing - This is local providers interface that customers will use to receive service, in my model it is accessed through a standard wifi welcome page that is the only point the users have access to when connecting to the wireless mesh network. This page offers the ability to pay in fiat currency for internet connection on per /gb basis. This page would also offers the ability to download the local client that is a customized version of the planetary client setup to connect to the planetary network web gateways that exist within the local network. This allows the subscription to be controlled by the subscriber providing their planetary network ip in the local interface and the planetary network web gateways operating with a white list that allows connection based on the subscription status of that planetary network IP.

  • Planetary Web Gateways - These are 3nodes deployed alongside the local entities that allow the local planetary network access to be controlled, On these devices is where the locality specific planetary clients will connect to a deployed workload that interchanges traffic between the local network and the grid. In most use cases with appropriate connections, this traffic can be directly interchanged with a public IP address residing at local site. In cases where there are concerns about traffic monitoring this network can be extended so that these three nodes network that traffic across z net or the planetary network, to a web gateway deployed on a remote farm. This allows traffic to be encrypted and transit tunnels from their terminal to a 3node located anywhere in the world before it is released to the internet.

  • Compute Resources- The additional benefit of providing connections in this model comes from being able to offer your customers VPS hosting as a low cost addition to their bill. With this availability a provider could bring a connection to an underserved area invest a single site internet exchange and expand the network wirelessly, while providing low cost/low power access terminals that leverage grid deployments for individuals users workloads. In an area with power and connection concerns this can allow for devices that can be run on solar/battery/generators to supports low power mesh network ultimately providing access to unlimited compute hosted on the threefold grid.

In this model the person/entity providing this service to their community would receive compensation from

  • Their web gateways capacity added to the grid
  • Their clients utilization of their desktop environment’s image deployed on the grid
  • Any Public Ips added to gateway nodes
  • Their clients subscription fees, any terminal rental fees.

      Yes this model does literally involve becoming a local I.S.P, yes it likely involves setting up contracts with your local major network providers. But from my understanding that’s exactly what we are actually here to do, To make the internet as accessible to people as their other utilities, to remove limitations on how people use their internet and increase access to information and knowledge across the world. The tools to build are in place, it is now time that we as a community take on the workload of integrating and deploying the threefold grid where we are, to serve our purposes, this is just one use case for tool that can be formed and molded to do anything your local community needs ranging from hosting a website, to providing the access to that website.

3 Likes
#12

My answer was not meant to impress, it was just a statement of fact in response on the message from Drew.

Is this the way how you approach people who have put money on the table to help to make this project possible?

@kristof Is this your idea of an ‘authentic’, all-inclusive community? it is starting to look like a new home for conspiracy theorists, crackpots and…

There’s no way for the isp to even be aware of this happening outside of them being directly told.

…people who publicly call to ignore terms which they have themselves agreed upon when obtaining ISP services, so lawless.

Please correct this behaviour, or forget any further assistance from our side regarding Validators, web3 banks or whatever. This is a total disgrace…

#13

@aernoud this is my project, and it’s well within MY TOS. Clearly it won’t work for you. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for others. If your afraid to be involved in a decentralized project because one person is doing something you don’t like, your going to have bigger problems then me suggesting people should have the ability to subvert limits in free speech.

#14

Thank you @ParkerS I would love to know more and I love how you think about this.
Allow me to read more about this tomorrow or so, couldn’t get to the detail this deserves.

Dear forum moderators, please help everyone in our forum to make sure we approach every post, idea, proposal and comment in the most positive way. It’s important, that we are an example for the world and are super respectful to each other and always communicate in the most positive constructive way.

5 Likes
#17

This is your project?

I was under the impression this was our project, by and for the community / all the people.

I’m here not? Already for over 5 years. What makes you think I’m afraid for decentralised projects?

Did you read the thread? This is not about persons. I’m trying to focus on the subject matter, but everyone here tries to make this a personal thing as soon as they run out of arguments. That’s fairly typical in this time of Trumpism, but will not help to bring things forward.

A third party is a very well defined legal term. I challenge everyone to call their ISP and ask if it is OK to connect their neighbour’s to their connection, and if it is OK if these neighbours connect their neighbour’s etc. Ask them…

Business connection? Ok. If you are a business call your ISP and ask them if it is OK to connect the local Internet cafe on their connection. While you’re at it, why not ask if it’s ok to connect the whole village.

Oh, but you should not ask them because they might find out what you are doing?

Ok… don’t ask. But how long does it take you think for your ISP’s to find out that you resell their connections if you are advertising your service and roll out your service on a large scale?

In this thread we were discussing the well intended solution of Drew to roll out local community networks. I’m interested in that to test the proposition locally. I suggested this solution might be a challenge due to the ToS the ISP’s I know maintain. My point is when something is possible technically, it doesn’t mean it’s a solution in the real World. Technical feasibility is solely the perspective of a nerd/engineer.

Of course, you can (and should) bring all parties at the table and discuss how to make things possible with the consent of all stakeholders involved. That makes things hard to scale, but you are doing this (I assume) in Africa now. Great.

But when bringing all parties on the table (including governments as they own the ISP’s mostly in third World countries) than sooner or later you will end up with discussions about compliance as I try to discuss here: https://forums.threefold.io/t/an-explanation-of-threefold-today-for-the-average-user/3444/9

If you really want to get technical you’re reselling your internet everytime someone deploys a workload on a node and uses it to access the internet this is no different.

A good point is brought up here. What if consumers connect servers to the network of ISP’s over which they don’t have control, running applications of third parties, storing content they cannot block, bypassing GNAT with the Planetary Network in countries (many of them around me) where ISP’s use this?

Anyone care to call an ISP in India for example to see how they respond?

My prediction is that at the end these consumers will be brought under the regulatory framework applicable for ISP’s, as the (bigger) retail farmers essentially have become ISP’s. Not today, not tomorrow, just only when TF starts appearing on the radar screen.

Of course you can stick your head in the ground till then and pretend all these questions are not relevant. But all I’m trying to do here is to show there are more limits on what can be done in practise than only technical limits. Again, better to discuss them now then later. I also don’t have all the answers, I just state the issues I see as (non engineering) member of this ‘decentralised’ project to together form viewpoints and solutions.

If ignoring these issues now is the strategy, then OK! All infrastructure / crypto projects do this, so why would we not? Fine with me, but don’t ridicule the issue as if it doesn’t exist. This is a much bigger issue where I live then in the developed countries maybe.

But please go ahead and continue to stare at your own navel only. As this is your project, then people who bring critique to your project and your point of view will be ridiculed and banned sooner or later. Very inclusive.

Today’s good news is that we are out of here. Good luck!

#18

I meant my project, as in the work being done in this thread. you wont be missed. you seem to have missed the part where your supposed to contribute more then problems to a project.

#19

For anyone who’s skeptical about whether something like this can work in the “real world”, I want to share a couple of videos I found in my own research around the concept, of people actually doing this, in a fully compliant way without dodging any ToS.

First, here’s Brandt in California, who appears to be getting his fiber feed from AT&T, just like Drew:

Next, here’s a village in South Africa that’s able to offer cheap unlimited data to the residents, beamed in over a tower they built themselves (it doesn’t mention who’s providing the upstream bandwidth):

I’m not sure exactly what we referred to here here, but just to be clear, ThreeFold isn’t taking any initiative around developing community wireless networks in Africa or anywhere else. Neither is Drew (yet), as far as I know. We’re just talking about ideas here!

Let’s also be totally clear, nobody is suggesting anything “lawless”. There’s no law against breaking the ToS of your ISP. Heck, I’m probably doing it right now, by using my consumer internet service to write this post in the course of my work. The quoted ToS above ban the use for any type of business or commercial enterprise.

Indeed, ISPs typically won’t let you run consumer grade internet plans at locations that are solely dedicated to business–they insist that businesses buy more expensive business plans. But it’s laughable to suggest that anyone is doing anything wrong by working from home without buying business internet, especially in the age of Covid.

I find the suggestion about “conspiracy theorists” and “crackpots” to be misguided and frankly disrespectful. We are people who dare to dream and have the courage to try building the internet we want to use.

Criticism, critiques, and reality checks are fully welcome here. Indeed, I brought quite a bit of that when I first joined the community. What’s really not welcome, in my eyes, is this suggestion that we “correct behavior” or some future investments are off the table. I’m happy to help resolve any disagreements, which are a normal part of having a community, to the best of my ability, but I won’t be policing the thought and speech of others who are presenting in good faith and with respect.

3 Likes
#20

With all respect (and I do have a lot of respect for what you’re doing for TF and how you communicate), but either you really do not understand, or you just don’t want to understand the topic at hand here.

You are an engineer, and you know a thousand things I cannot begin to understand. But when it comes to legal stuff, I think I have much more experience then you have, so accept that as an added value for the community.

We were discussing connecting Third Parties to a service provided by an ISP. This was suggested by Drew as part of the solution he offered to connect local communities.

This is completely different from the use of a Internet connection by the primary contract party, i.e. the Farmer.

If you operate against their ToS, the ISP has the legal and law supported right to disconnect you, and even claim damages. So, you can go to court, but the ISP is in his legal right to terminate the contract if you don’t adhere to their ToS. The Law will not allow this, unless what has been written in the ToS compromises other standing Laws (so, you cannot agree in the ToS that you are allowed to shoot people for example).

So, not complying with a ToS eventually is outside the law as the ISP can invoke the law to have its ToS enforced, or can legally (by law) disconnect a subscriber without the subscriber having the legal right to claim damages.

You are comparing apples with oranges here.

Using your consumer connection to work from home, is not an infringement of any articles about third party use.

It is not what you do, but who is doing it…

However, as I indicated, an interesting case arises if the consumer (or business) connection is used to execute workloads that actually are under the full control of third parties .

The contract partner of the ISP (the farmer) actually doesn’t even know who is executing workloads on their nodes, let alone what these workloads and associated data entail.

So, in this case an ISP could take the point of view that, though no third party is physically connected to the connection of the contract partner, the actual workloads are actually on behalf of a third party.

It’s just hosting, another activity which is excluded as permitted use by most ISP’s.

Questions surrounding this topic have been raised before on the diverse forums of TF. Farmers sometimes have asked ‘ am I responsible for the workloads / data stored on a node if/when these workloads / data are against the law ’. I have never seen a satisfying answer to this.

Believe me, when TF scales up, then ISP’s will take the point of view that this is NOT permitted use. Believe me also when I say I want to be wrong here and that TF is too small now to be on any radar screen (so now is the time to discuss this).

And again, if there are people actually doing this, then this doesn’t mean that they are compliant.

Again, technical possibility does not imply legal feasibility.

The current crackdown of the SEC on crypto is a good example. Yes, all these crypto’s are technically possible, but at the end they are just securities and will be treated as such by law. The rest of the World will follow.

Call me arrogant, but I predicted that this would happen already 10 years ago, and therefore I never advised anyone to invest in crypto. At the end, most of it is just against the intention of current laws, however ‘the people’ want this to be different.

Look at the disaster these days with FTX. The enormous amount of money lost by retail investors like most of you here.

To avoid loses for unqualified investors (you all) is exactly the reason why securities are so heavily regulated. All the mistakes currently made by the crypto industry, were made decades ago by the then established financial institutes, and the Governments stopped the the damage by regulation (which has surpassed its goals in many ways, but that is another discussion).

Believe me, I know about all this as I was co-founder of an important fintech company in The Netherlands which we managed to make happen only because of close collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and tons of $$ spend on lawyers before we launched.

The intelligent reader might observe that we actually invested in TF (crypto). Why? Well, because at that time TF coined (as a first?) the term Utility Token . Not a security, but a means doing micro transactions on a distributed network.

Note how TF still stresses that the TFT is NOT a speculative instrument, but a software token to exchange value within a closed eco-system. Regarding content storage things where also differently presented (interpreted by us?) back then as is the case now.

It was all still a new and a grey area, but convincing enough for us to go ahead 5 years ago.

But I digress… the best way to make sure (and show me that I’m totally wrong) is to call your ISP and check if what you are doing (or plan to do) is compliant with their ToS.

If you don’t want to do that, then you are afraid for the answer.

Again, this issue is a real issue in the countries where I live / have lived, further amplified by the fact that the ISP’s are state owned. But rolling out the TF proposition in a practical way in Third World countries was the topic of this thread.

And my investors do care for the ‘doing good’ aspect of this project. They are even OK to loose their money WHEN the project has created value for the less served.

What they don’t like however is for their investments to just disappear in thin air or wasted. Not because they don’t want to loose money, but because that money could have been in invested other projects for good !

Lastly, as I advise people to invest (or not) in certain propositions, then if a project relies on a subjective interpretation, the bending or the braking of law (direct or indirect), then it means the project has a legal exposure (justified or not).

If I do not inform the investors about this exposure, then MY head will come off.

Hence, my opinions and questions reflect this. Remarks about possible future investments are about concerns from the investors who trust me, as they don’t have the (technical) knowledge to asses these type of projects.

You forgot to sum up all the disrespectful words which were thrown towards me recently. You seem to be heavily biased towards your co-engineers regarding this (and you are not the only one) unfortunately.

I like this project as I know some key persons in this project already for over 20 years. Hence, I try to see if I can make this project more investor friendly (a clear answer is enough sometimes), so that I could convince certain people for the benefit of all.

So far I failed miserably, but this was never due to the questions I asked, but always due to the answers I received.

#21

I can call my i.s.p and tell them exactly what I’m doing, it’s within my TOS :joy:, you’re just wrong, my project is entirely viable where I am deploying, I’m doing it for me, I offered you it as something that may be of use to you, clearly it’s not, now please go away.

Also I’m not an engineer, I’m a paramedic.

Perhaps your countries “tech advisors” haven’t done a good job of informing consumer because here the largest isp in the country is building DANos a decentralized routing solution, and they are integrating block chain tech with their services.

1 Like
#22

Actually, I’m not. I chose a different path long ago, but I am grateful to my engineer father for providing me with access to computers with modems from a young age and teaching me many things about technology. Instead, I studied English language, literature, and mathematics at university, with plans to become a secondary school teacher.

Somewhere along the way, I got a crazy idea that I’d rather be my own boss, which led to an entrepreneurial career of driving a pedicab, providing care for the elderly and those with special needs, and freelancing as a writer and editor primarily supporting marketing efforts of small businesses.

So now you know a bit more about me. And while yes, I’m a nerd and I do a lot with the tech here, my primary focus is people, communication, and education.

I won’t speak for Drew, but I don’t think that he considers himself an engineer either.

My bias is towards people who come with positive, constructive input. As a steward of this community, I’ve seen too clearly how people who make it their job to bring “tough questions” can drag down the energy of the whole project.

Sorry to hear that you feel disrespected, but I’m honestly not sure what you’re referring to. Feel free to point me directly to the words and phrases that are bothering you (preferrably in a DM).

You asked us to take some action based on the fact that someone is suggesting that an ISP might not detect or take action on a violation of their ToS. I’m just pointing out that I can’t, in good faith, insist that everyone comply with their ISPs ToS at all times.

I agree that we have a lot of unanswered questions about how we’ll deal with illegal content and workloads on the grid, and whether farming is indeed permissible under most consumer internet agreements. Let’s discuss those things elsewhere, and please keep this thread on topic.

I’d like to summarize the points you’ve brought up, to make sure they’re well understood. Then the conversation here can move forward regarding what is possible with regard to neighborhoods ISPs and how this relates to ThreeFold. So…

  1. Reselling internet as an ISP is against the ToS of many consumer internet plans
  2. In countries like Sri Lanka, the fiber internet lines are operated by a government entity, and running a local ISP in a compliant way will require their cooperation

What this means for ThreeFold, from my perspective:

  1. As we form partnerships with nations to deploy ThreeFold technology for their citizens, wireless connectivity infrastructure as described in this thread could be a valuable tool to connect people to the capacity provided by 3Nodes
  2. Any discussions with the governments of those nations around this possibility should include consideration for how the upstream bandwidth is sourced in a compliant way
  3. Anyone considering an independent initiative in line with what’s described in this thread should also make sure they’ve considered the ToS of their upstream connection and any other legal restrictions (e.g. use of wireless spectrum)

Did I miss anything? If not, let’s please consider the points taken and move on with on topic, constructive discussion in this thread.

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#23

Thank you @scott for sharing those two videos.
The content is fascinating.
It is indeed possible it seems!

Seeing it on video, it’s now easier to grasp the project @ParkerS is laying out here.
It’s a wonderful idea Drew!

So here’s a question @ParkerS, in short we’d have the following main steps ? :

  1. The Internet comes from a tower cell or some main outside structure (perhaps Starlink, or else)
  2. The Internet is brought to a house, or main building
  3. The Internet is then used on the TF Grid with many 3nodes, thus adding the TF Grid’s security
  4. The Internet is then accessible through Wi-Fi by small antennas on places away from the main building
  5. The main building and the other places create a mesh of interconnected Internet connectivity
  6. It would be possible have 3nodes available in some of those other places (not the main building with the main Internet source) to further grow the community Internet capacity

Clearly, this is a simplified version of the project. But I want to make sure I get it right.