Post #1491306

2026-03-12 21:50 UTC

@daks @marsik I've been thinking that but also researching ISO - OSI to try and work out if I've missed something - but I think I've just come back to the same question 😊 I'm not a network engineer, just an enthusiast that has become absolutely depressed by what has become of the Internet, which was once really fun and vibrant and independent, but is now mostly full of corporate capture and people who are basically zombies. Reticulum is interesting because of the ideology, to specifically resist corporate capture and retain community control. I think the main difference is reticulum is designed to connect over multiple different types of networks, I've only played with Sideband so far, but that has RNode (LoRa), Wifi/Ethernet, I2P, Radio Modem, Serial Port, Weave, PLUS TCP/IP (if you /want/ to connect through the Internet: but the idea is to be as independent as possible /instead/ of requiring everything to work through TCP/IP). And reticulum is a decade old so it's not new either - I think it's getting a bit more attention now because of the rise in popularity of (newish) Meshtastic and (very new) Meshcore though, as people get LoRa devices and want to try different firmware and networks. And the challenge and fun of creating completely independent networks is absolutely addictive. Knowing you are communicating with people using nothing but your own radios that are deployed by members of the network with no subscriptions or corporations involved is extremely satisfying (and I'm sure that's part of what makes HAM attractive and has been since the golden era of radio). If I understand correctly, TOR only uses TCP/IP to anonymously route data - please correct me if I'm wrong?

Replies (3)

@marsik@witter.cz 2026-03-13 06:47

@kudra @daks "TOR only uses TCP/IP to anonymously route data" Yes, but you keep forgetting IP is truly media independent. Eg: - IP over LoRa - RNode - IP over UHF - Thread (802.15.4), HaLow - IP over HAM radio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improved_Layer_2_Protocol - IP over serial - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Line_Internet_Protocol - IP over phone - PPP - IP over light - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers (it works!) To avoid corporations, use 16 mil. private IPv4 addresses (10.x.x.x) or https://simpledns.plus/private-ipv6 (fd:: 2^56 nets).

Open ##1491307
@marsik@witter.cz 2026-03-13 06:52

@kudra @daks "Reticulum is interesting because of the ideology, to resist corporate capture and retain community control." Absolutely. People are trying to escape a cyberpunk like dystopian world where corporations rule the world, I get it. My main issue with that is technical, people repeat old mistakes. In other words: learn from history, do not reinvent it, badly. Experimentation is great for studying the mechanisms. But not for production. Scaling to millions of users is really hard.

Open ##1491308
@marsik@witter.cz 2026-03-13 07:19

@kudra @daks And just to give you an example about how people avoided corporations and high internet cost in Czech Republic. In 2002 there were few community city-wide networks called CZFree.net. About 2000 volunteers built their own infrastructure (visible light link RONJA was part of that) and operated the networks independently from any ISP. Eventually, most became small local ISPs themselves though. Centralization has benefits too - lower cost, higher reliability, etc. Scale does matter...

Open ##1491317