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: Networking: Relevancies between its today and yesterday

Point A: 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.

Point B:

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 grassroot infrastructure as counter-infrastructures. This section will examine the landscape of DIY grass root networking practices and try to theorize, what kind of counter-infrastructures are they, why are they urgently needed as alternative models, and how do counter-infrastructures realized objective such as autonomy, accessibility transparency, and etcetera.

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 are not mutually exclusive, as an example will likely to exhibit more than one type of characteristic.

Community networks are mesh networks, such as the Spanish Guifi.net, the German Freifunk, the Austrian Punkfeuer and the Athenian AWMN. Mesh networking allows participating nodes in the network to communicate to each other, and share Internet access using a special routing protocol. The infrastructure of community networks are owned by its users. The ownership grants user rights to participate in the social and technical development of the network, to determine their network infrastructure and principles at their own hands. Key words: community, proximity, sustainability, autonomy, cooperation, fair-priced, transparency, principle of net neutrality. [On net neutrality: coined by media law professor Tim Wu; With net neutrality, ISPs may not intentionally block, slow down, or charge money for specific online content. Without net neutrality, ISPs may prioritize certain types of traffic, meter others, or potentially block traffic from specific services, while charging consumers for various tiers of service. ]

Tactical networks are strategically oriented, implemented during states of emergency – environmental disasters, insurrections, and Internet black outs. The examples included are Firechat, developed by Open Garden, to allow users to communicate via connetivities other than Wifi, such as bluetooth or multi-peer connectivity. (Ibid) Firechat has been adapted by protestors in Hong Kong to bypass surveillance embedded in major ISP connections. Other examples included Qaul.net, by Matthias Jud and Christoph Wachter, developed for the need to connect freely and independently.

Off-The-Cloud networks challenge the implied assumption that network equates World Wide Web. In network researcher Sarah Grant's Subnodes, five Raspberry Pi are configured as web server, wireless access point and BATMAN mesh node. 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.

Speculative networks

Topic 2: Open models of participation: its adaptation in networking practices

Point A: Point B:

Topic 3: Feminism and grass root, DIY networking practices

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Topic 4: Networking with retro media

Point A: Point B: