Mesh networking uses a distributed routing approach. there is no centralized router, each node in the mesh can act as a router, forwarding data to other nodes. when I was joined up the the NYC mesh, I bought my own router and flashed it with open source firmware.
there are various approaches to routing tables and node discovery, too, including fully open and permissionless. they _can_ be closed (like for military purposes or something), but they can also be fully open as long as a node has compatible hardware.
open your mind a bit! it feels like you're very defensive about the topic...
Replies (2)
it feels like you don't understand the problem
if everybody is routing and there is no IP hierarchy that means everybody has to have a global view of the network so it doesn't scale and bad actors can join and spam the routing tables
You could use subjective reputation systems to establish routing preferences per node. You could introduce _some_ opt-in centralization at appropriate levels in geographic communities. You could introduce opt-in hierarchy in the same way ("I choose this gateway/router and I trust it wrt the peers it routes to").
None of these are perfect solutions, but I don't enjoy seeing people throw the baby out with the bathwater, because I do think we have an upcoming networking and connectivity emergency on our hands when State actors and/or megacorps decide to turn their malign attention towards Internet infrastructure and it would be great to start exploring mitigations early.
Do you have other solutions? I'd love to hear them.
