Subalternet

Request for experimentation (RFE).

Subalternet (*see also “Names” below) is basically just a wifi access point set up as a local network, without connection to the Internet. It is an intentionally balkanized network, deplyed with the same SSID and password at multiple locations so that once you have joined the network in one location, you will automatically join it in other locations too. Local content and services are deployed on the subalternet. It is an experiment in disjointness, subjectivity, sense of place, virtual/physical interplay, and pockets of local content.

Motivations/interests

• Subjectivity
  • of History and state
  • of Identity
  • NOTE: the emphasis on subjectivity is NOT “anti truth” - it is about plurality and space for always-already-becoming.
• Situated-ness and situations
• Local and balkanized content
• Informal norms and networks
• Location proofs
• See also Decentering the Online Self

Basics

• install an access point with SSID and password that is the same at multiple locations. anyone who has previously connected at one location will connect at other locations with the same configuration automatically as they come across them.
• the AP is NOT connected to the internet
• but otherwise uses wifi and all the familiar network protocols.
• offers local services with local servers - whatever it wants (ideas below, but no constraints).
• may offer local DNS service or just be IP based.
  • Convention for those who want to be explicitly incompatible with the “I”nternet is to use NON local IPs. This innoculates against nodes connecting to the Internet (I think?).
• Configuration parameters and access information are shared through informal human communication (though nothing stopping people from posting it online).
• Experientially - one of logging OFF the “regular” internet and “going to” or “joining” a “different” network. Another “place.”
  • Visiting google.com or another popular domain locally might act as a kind of easter egg that gives you a clue as to “where” you are: “what is this place?”
    “the world is upside down.” Others might just not resolve. It might become convention to host something at a common IP and/or domain.

Service Ideas

• rhizomatic newsletter - you have to have been there to pick up updates.
  • consumption only - read locally.
  • append log - requires protocol on consumer/client side. if location B receives an update from location A, it means someone physically went between the two. sneakernet.
  • syncing - use email! delay tolerant! 🙌
    • SMPT/POP/IMAP
    • mailman 2 (not 3) - use newsletters as known update locations. * could offer personal emails too
• ebook content server (local content only? Or can folks sync and propagate book content?)
• IPFS or SSB with custom addresses for content sync?
• Custom filesystem.

Variants/alternatives?

• Normal VPN with private network access only.
  • could sync across locations - private layer on top of the Internet.
  • requires some centralization for credentials? (Though not super different than sharing an SSID and password).
  • but less subjective and decentralized.
• SSB or IPFS? What does that get us?

Comments

• implications: anyone with the AP info can share it with others, and anyone can add a compatible node.
• the protocol is not a filter for intention or privacy. People can always add compliant nodes - they might do so just to become an information sink irrespective of their intentions.
• what is to stop people from offering a Subalternet AP that is also connected to the capital-I internet? Specifically want to stop this. I think it’s all about IPs/DNS - domains that conflict with Internet addresses or are only meaningful locally.

Names

• Alicenet
• Wonderland
• Subalternet (subjective + alternative = subaltern. Subaltern also = the lower status, the minority. Lower + other]
• The Great Firewall of XXX
• The Minor Firewall of XXX
• The Optional Firewall / Subjective firewall / Great Subalternet
• The Balkans