User:)biyibiyibiyi(/RW&RM 04/thesis o 0 0 1
Introduction:
1. Background
During the last fifteen years, there has been proliferating practices of grass root, DIY networking around the world. Grass root DIY networking practices is a counter narrative to mainstream networking, responding to pathologies of the modern networked world, such as opacity of network infrastructure and asymmetry of power between network monopolies and users (Dragona & Charitos, 2017). Projects that can be categorized as grass root DIY networking vary by their technical medium, original context, locality and scale. A few examples can be used to illustrate these varying projects under the same shared notion of counter-infrastructure, such as autonomous feminist servers, local mesh networks for site specific communities, and experimental, speculative infrastructures to propose critical imaginaries, that may be of limited scale and application.
The building and facilitation of grass root DIY networks often utilize Free/Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS) tools and open hardware, and adhere to their core principles of freedom to use, modify and redistribute. At the same time, the adaptation of open principles reaffirm objectives of grass root, DIY networking practices. Openness can be used as a tool to create accessibility, for those who are at the margins and are not connected to networks provided by mainstream providers. Additionally, accessibility can also mean an accessible option, a possibility for alternative, in addition to relying on network infrastructures from mainstream providers. Openness can also provide transparency, in terms of visibility of network's topological structure, visibility of processes that happen during maintaining and taking care of shared networks, such as making decisions, reaching consensus, raising suggestions and critiques, amongst a group of users, so that power is distributed in a visible, horizontal and democratic manner. Openness can also encourage reproduce-ability, encouraging more communities to take similar actions - the potentials of openness are multifaceted, and I will not go on with its elaboration.
The research of DIY grass root networking practices will also be studied in tandem with media archaeology. The interest in media archaeology is two fold. First, the field of networking is a sedimented terrain, consisted of layers built on top of existing layers. Media archaeological approaches to studying networks will unravel historical lineages of network development, and shed light on understanding how modern network's topology, attributions, structures and qualities come into beings as of today. Second, there has been recurring interests and practices devoted to networking with retro, phased out media, such as radio communication networks. Archaeological reuse of these media effectively provoke a tension in temporality that critically question the nature and affordances of networking, in the age of the networked world that's promising faster speed, greater durability, larger bandwidth and constant connectivity. This thesis will examine networking combined with media archaeology in the following two aspects. First, understanding the current state of networking in a reverse engineering manner, by looking back to histories of networking. Second, surveying the reuse of retro, considered-as phased out media in DIY networking practices.
2. Thesis statement
The making and hacking of grass root DIY networks and infrastructures construct the counter narrative towards centralized forms of network organization. DIY networking promises porosity, transparency and flexibility unavailable in centralized systems. Very often, decentralized networking practices are using and applying F/LOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) tools and its tenets. The making process often call for transparency, such as making public and accessible the materials and technical procedures. Adaptation of open working methods aim to confirm objectives of creating grass root DIY networks, such as accessibility, transparency and reproduce-ability.
The making process if facilitate by textual mediums, often belonging to the notion of technical texts, such as tutorials, user manuals, and bug reports, and RFCs (Request for Comments). I propose to examine these textual mediums critically, despite the impression that they appear to be plain, accessible, instructive, universal and decontextualized. The thesis will question the promised accessibility, legibility and openness these mediums and processes they facilitate for envision. Are there barriers of access? If there is, how are these barriers constructed? Are there ableism and meritocracy in open practice? If there is, how are these signs of privileges and power indicated? By acknowledging these un-comforting urgencies, I want to call for critical interpretation towards instructive texts. This critical examination can activate these textual mediums as public, civic sites to lessen barriers to be able to engage with technology, interject lay-speech into technological discourses and instigate collective making.
The examination of technical and instructive texts is taken as a lens to probe into larger context of grass root maker movement, DIY networking, and open source software and hardware practices. By examining the writing of technical and instructive texts in both contemporary networking and network archaeology, I aim to address the importance of making acknowledging privileges, making visible barriers of access, and diversifying the understanding of open models of DIY maker culture and inviting richer interpretations.
Body:
Topic 1: A Survey into DIY Networking Practices
DIY networking projects vary, by their technical medium, original context, and scale. Few examples include feminist server infrastructures, local community mesh networks, and speculative infrastructures. This section will take a close look into the emergent DIY networking projects, and try to summarize what kind of counter-infrastructures are they, why are they urgently needed as alternative models, and how do counter-infrastructures realize objectives such as autonomy, accessibility, transparency, and etcetera.
Point A: The key principles of DIY networking projects – locality, autonomy, agility, adaptability, online vs. offline, speed, band-width and latency.
During the last fifteen years, DIY grass root networking practices are actively adapted by communities, organizations, predominantly and Europe and North America. DIY grass root networking initiatives aim for securing autonomy, transparency, and accessibility for communities of different scales, locations and contexts. The research of Daphane Dragona and Dimitris Charitos coined DIY infrastructure as counter-infrastructures.
Dragona has categorized three types of networks in state-of-the-art of the alternative networking landscape, such as community networks, tactical mesh networks, off the could networks, and speculative networks. These categories and characteristics are not mutually exclusive.
Locality, inclusion and autonomy: Community networks are mesh networks, typically within a geographical region, consisted of participating nodes able to perform internal communication; Internet access can also be shared, using routing protocol such as the Open Mesh protocol. Community networks are user owned and controlled, granting users rights to participate in the social and technical development of the network, holding its fate at their own hands. Community networks can be described with characteristics of proximity, locality, cooperation, transparency, autonomy and net neutrality. Agility and adaptability: Tactical networks are strategically implemented during states of Internet blackouts, caused by environmental disasters, insurrections and censorship. The example of Firechat uses Bluetooth connectivity to enable communication between users, effectively provide an alternative to Wifi reliant communication. On/Off Dynamics: Off-The-Cloud networks challenge dichotomy of online and offline. Network researcher Sarah Grant's project Subnodes is a network composed of Raspberry Pi configured to enable messaging, file sharing and streaming. The network allows people to communicate and share content in places without Internet access, such as in subway stations. The possibility of sharing content without wireless connection radically challenge the notion that exchange of information needs to happen within the Internet environment. As Subnodes is open source, communities and initiatives are able to apply off-line networking method in their unique circumstances. Similarly, PirateBox is a project created for users to share files, chat, and video stream within PirateBox's network connection. Reinterpreting speed, bandwidth and latency: Speculative network projects such as Feline file exchange network.
Point B: The significances of DIY Networking with Retro Media
Topic 2: Networking: Relevancies between its history and current state
Point A: Networking is a sedimented field.
Point B: Networking is subjective. The history of networking reveals network infrastructure's social, cultural and political implications. Rather than the impression that technological networks are objective topologies to transmit information, the building of network infrastructure and protocols are bounded by subjective social, political and ideological conditions. This section will take a look into several examples to illustrate that network space is a strongly discursive space. The examples will start with the precursor of the modern web, ARPANET. Developed during the cold war era in military context, the network's design and implementation embodied management principles of indisputable execution for top-down commands; despite the fact that the topology of ARPANET communicate a degree of decentralization, as the networked locations are geographically spread out and are able conduct inter-nodal communication. Methodologies and terminologies from Alexander Galloway's How Control Exists after Decentralization will be useful to unpack the antagonism between centralized control and decentralization. The followed examples are other networks which are developed different contexts and inclinations of interest, such as the French Minitel Network, Usenet, and Soviet network OGAS. The study of these networks is to stress the fact that networks are not neutral spaces, but loaded weighs from social-political interferences.
Topic 3: Urgency for Diversification
Point A: Welcoming Queer Interpretations to build DIY Networks. This example will study the initiatives that takes feminist and queer approaches to build DIY networks. These initiatives recognize the shortcomings of mainstream networks and aim to create safe and autonomous places for marginalized groups.
Point B: Textual Media as a Diversifying Tool. This section will draw upon the prototypes developed from the project proposal. The prototypes try to reinvent textual media as tools to welcome sociality around textual media.
Conclusion
When critically engaged, textual media can enable counter narrating, reverse engineering, un-blackboxing, the empowering of marginalized groups and investigate the possibilities of decolonialization.