Bushwick Darknet – an ITP thesis for Sean McIntyre

Sean McIntyre is a good friend who helped with the L Train Notwork. When he talked to me about his thesis project, I jumped at the opportunity to help.

Sean’s thesis was a proof of concept for a theoretical Darknet that could exist for a community like Bushwick.

It was great to work with Sean, to look at a technology like meshnets and figure out:-  what benefit it could have (with easily available internet everywhere, what value would a local intranet have?),

– how a community would use a meshnet (using opensource tools to rapidly prototype  a mashup of craigslist and messaging services that would be available over mobile and desktop machines, that would allow both temporary and anonymous communication as well as a registered community.)

– and what it would take to drive adoption (coming up with branding, allowing users to send summaries to online email accounts, distribution of wifi hotspots and creating opportunities for organic growth).

Sean’s plan is to slowly roll out the meshnet, allowing for community centered, organic growth.You can see Sean’s blog posts here:

http://blog.boxysean.com/2013/02/12/do-it-yourself-wireless/
http://blog.boxysean.com/2013/02/18/rooftop-tour-of-brooklyn/
http://blog.boxysean.com/2013/02/24/my-lan-has-a-clock-tower/

And here as well:

http://thesis.itp.io/students/sm4266