#spanishrevolution has been a trending topic on twitter. And, to present day, many camping squares and protests have risen in Athens, London, Paris, Berlin and Mexico (Mexico city AND Guadalajara). As I could start a never-ending discussion on many aspects of the #spanishrevolution, I will here only mention the successful wifi coverage of plaça catalunya by guifi.net.

Plaça Catalunya is the most representative square of Barcelona and, as such, it has been the target for a camping site during the #spanishrevolution. Many campers could connect to wireless networks and many people could watch what campers were doing via online webcams. However, many of these wireless networks were shutdown or left unavailable (even weather forecast webcams pointing towards plaça catalunya). Here is when an open and free network as guifi (an it’s users) become handy. They succeed in providing a wirless internet connection to plaça catalunya but with some technical master skills (aka . it was not easy). As one of the guifi.net members posted on their mailing list, they had to achieve a rebound of the signal as there were no guifi antenas on a near location. (I will avoid giving technical details). But I think that this capacity of turning a hole (no connection) into a node (connected) displacing antennas, making “rebounds”, managing urban infrastructure it is something to celebrate. Here are some pic’s guifi.net emailed:

RAX!

The Bio-inititive report is a report on the potential effects Electromagnetic Fields and Radio Frequencies can have in our health. It addresses GSM microwaves as well as WiFi ones and, as far as I can tell, it is quite exhaustive; 610 pages.

“Human beings are bioelectrical systems. Our hearts and brains are regulated by internal bioelectrical signals. Environmental exposures to artificial EMFs can interact with fundamental biological processes in the human body. In some cases, this can cause discomfort and disease. Since World War II, the background level of EMF from electrical sources has risen exponentially, most recently by the soaring popularity of wireless technologies such as cell phones (two billion and counting in 2006), cordless phones, WI-FI and WI-MAX networks.”(bioinitiative report, 2007)

The truth is, that our households are increasingly being penetrated (aka exposed) by a larger number of devices transmitting microwaves at different frequencies. You can run a quick scan of wifi networks each year and state the difference by yourself. Now, as an exposure to something (as was being exposed to charbon-based heat or smoke filled discotheques), I guess medical evidence will highlight what the dangers (or benefits) are.

Regardless of how dangerous EMF are or might be, it is interesting to note how accurate the management of collective health and collective awareness of “threatening invisible signals” (such as microbes; not only microwaves) has become. One of the CSI students here at l’Ècole des Mines, Julien Gauthey, made my day by helping me discover two words;

“electrosensibles”; aimed at people who are more affected than others by EMF or RF. and:

“expologie” (with and “y” at the end instead of the “ie” for an english conversion): sort of science of those being exposed to threatening signals. Sort of epidemiologie carried by other means. Signals and alerts, for instance.

Now, it would really be a great paradox to start seeing “wifi free” areas instead of “free wifi” ones now that so many effort is being made to populate the EMF

Time will tell (everyone is willing to be connected to digital networks, no one is willing to get a cancer. No perfect drug (NIN dixit) for the time being)

Before ending this post, it is worth noticing that although the term wifi appears on the bio-initiative report webpage and in quoted text here also, it should not be equaled to GSM and other EMF radiations that are far more powerful than wifi. In deed, if one reads the report conclusions;

The lower limit for reported human health effects has dropped 100- fold below the safety standard (for mobile phones and PDAs); 1000- to 10,000-fold for other wireless (cell towers at distance; WI-FI and WLAN devices). The entire basis for safety standards is called into question, and it is not unreasonable to question the safety of RF at any level. -they further elaborate and propose a minimum threshold-; A cautionary target level for pulsed RF exposures for ambient wireless that could be applied to
RF sources from cell tower antennas, WI-FI, WI-MAX and other similar sources is proposed. The recommended cautionary target level is 0.1 microwatts per centimeter squared (μW/cm2)** (or 0.614 Volts per meter or V/m)** for pulsed RF where these exposures affect the general public.”

But a cell tower IS NOT a WiFi tower. I think we shoud be able to distinguish the intensity and power of those radiations so as to have a comparison scale. Because otherwise we might leave room for unnecessary alarmism concerning wifi (wich is NOT gsm).

RAX!

Windy days. 115 Km/h in some regions of Catalonia and, as you can tell by images on the news, some “material” damage and some personal loss have to, unfortunately, be acknowledged.

fallen trees due to strong winds in catalonia - from vilaweb.cat

Spain is a rather strange country where, when it rains (not a big shower, but just some apparently innocent raindrops…);

1) Trains do not work properly (Mostly those run by RENFE).

2) Blackouts (FECSA / ENDESA) are common and, therefore, tend to threaten all your power devices with a high voltage returning power supply which, if you are not aware of, will literaly burn some of your fridge, radio, tv, pc pluged devices.

3) Everyone takes the car to drive by any loctaion. So, traffic jams are expected everywhere.

The same, but worse, occurs when we have; snow, strong winds, fog or any combination of them.

WiFi is known to be altered by water, resulting in a loss of signal penetration. Humidity / fog being it’s principal enemies. That is why some people at the Czech Republic do link their WiFi devices with optic antennas, which is just great!

Optical link antena form free tech. project RONJA used by free wireless community CZFree in České Republic

Nevertheless, while waiting for the promise of generalized WiMAX, strong winds have put in the forefront one of the many advices Susan Leigh Star wrote about infrastructure in her 1999 article entitled; “the ethnography of Infrastructure” which bluntly is;

- “Infrastructure becomes visible upon breakdown”

Illustrators such as David Macaulay had previously done a great job showing the ring of the beast or, else, the invisible infrastructure. See; “underground” for instance.

Again, some happy hurricanated winds come to remind us how dependent we are of already existing infrastructures (hello from the missing masses front!)

RAX!

Yesterday I learnt about a hacklab located in Madrid (Spain) named hamlab. They are attempting to run a GSM network for free. They do that under a R+D license and with a gsm machine, Ettus, affordable for 300 Euros aprox. The GSM machine redirects to a local Asterisk server. And that should do must of the trick (w/ OpenBTS).

At the 25th Chaos Communication Congress (25C3) held in bcc Berliner Congress Center in Berlin, Germany, you could get some info about GSM workarounds. See;  http://events.ccc.de/congress/2008/wiki/GSM.

gsm directional directional antenna. from antoniotomas.com

Now, this is interesting because it confirms the ongoing trend to move and experiment towards a Citizen Management of Technology. Once was Free Radio Air Waves, Then TV signals, WiFi and it seems that now GSM is targeted. Great. But, why would anyone bother to do so? well, here are some reasons;

a) Affordable prices for tech pieces and components

b) Networked Knowledge about highly specific skills. (How to’s and Man pages – which, btw, constitute a great example of what Pierre Levy understands as a movement of virtualisation-actualisation of knowledge)

c) Frustrations with existing telecom infrastructures.

d) A Will to play with machines. Just the fun of it.

e) A Will to innovate.

f) A claim for a right to the city (following Henry Lefebvre term);  We may propose here a right to infrastructures.

Certainly something to keep thinking about for my thesis…

RAX!

Have been in Paris for a couple of days. Visiting Place des Vosges (close to La Bastille), one can see these type of panels planted in the frozen grass nearby a tree; (pics where taken with my cell phone, sorry about low resolution…)

wifi paris

“Wi-Fi in public spaces is not a gated community, but rather a public resource that can be shared and appreciated by all just like the shade of a large tree.” (Corina et al., 2006, p. 220)

Whether useful or not (no one was apparently enjoying outdoor free wifi access in minus 1 Celsius degrees…) it fits quite well with this quote form people signing the Free Wireless Networks in the Developing World (nevertheless, all worlds are developing worlds though…).

Now, why  Can I benefit in a public place from a muni-wifi initiative (Paris-Wi-Fi) in Paris? And Why I can not benefit from a muni-wifi initiative in Barcelona (Barcelonasensefils)? What is at stake with the comparison?.

The book ref.; Corina et al. (2006) Wireless networking in the developing world. A practical guide to planning and building low-cost telecommunications infrastructures

You can download it in many languages here; http://www.wndw.net/.

[1]: though I will have to check

A larger perspective;

wifi paris large. Place Des Vosges. Paris. 01/2009.

PS:  From paris-wifi website we can read: “Le service Paris Wi-Fi est accessible à tous de 7h à 23h et dans la limite des horaires d’ouverture au public. Les jardins équipés Wi-Fi sont reconnaissables à la signalétique présente dès les points d’entrée.
Pour se connecter, il suffit de se rendre dans une zone de connexion, à proximité d’un point d’accès. Afin de matérialiser cette zone, une signalisation figure sur les bancs publics des jardins équipés.”

RAX!

Winter Holiday and people at guifi.net does not seem to slow down. They keep meeting on Thursdays (indeed, recently Tuesdays) at guifilab (sort of wifi workshop to learn and test new stuff with an open invitation to anyone interested) in Barcelona. They first started to meet at a hacklab called riereta.net, they moved to Infospai (a sociolopitical center) and some times to la Quimera: Kernel Panic (another hacklab). As such, guifilab is more likely to be a grouping of people that can be summoned upon different locations and that will start talking and making the agenda to foster free and neutral (as they put it) wifi networks.

One of these workshops dealt with the issue of network architecture and protocols for Barcelona. As many other wifi initiatives, guifi.net relies on nodes and supernodes transmitting / receiving data. These nodes are being set up with special firmwares (you can see a recommended list here; http://www.guifi.net/firmware. dd-guifi stands for a custom version of dd-wrt) and they usually follow a master-client approach to get linked via roof tops.

Nevertheless, as Barcelona orography is dissimilar to “rural” Catalonia ones, some wanted to try mesh networks to see if that worked better for a high density of nodes scenario. “Dit i fet” (“told and done”; a popular catalan expression).

Following previous experiences like people at freifunk, we profited from the visit of one of his members, Axel, to start tunning some routers / AP into mesh artifacts with BATMAN inside. Previously, in 2007, at the SAX annual meeting, they had Elektra sharing knowledge about it too.

As a result, between a lapse of one moth aprox., they have already started a working mesh network in some neighborhood (Gracia). You can see a map here; http://merry.biruji.org/gsf/mapa/ (Be aware that this map is not listing all guifi nodes, it only shows meshed ones)

The speeding up process these people are carrying out is really astonishing. If one thinks they started at a remote location in Gurb and now do extend to more than 7.000 km one can not stop himself wondering how

[btw, it is no secret they have become members of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) by now]

Now, how will mesh network be integrated to master-client already existing infrastructure? Will this technical innovation lead to more people connected to guifi? Does it simplify the connection process for non-that-expert users? It is a choice in the network routing protocols facilitating or hardening the way citizens can manage urban infrastructures -as wifi- by themselves?

Are Technological Zones (to use Andrew Barry  terminology) between freifunk (Germany) and guifi.net (Catalunya) being shaped at this particular moment when a protocol locally designed in Germany profiting form globally spread programming knowledges is actualized in local machines in Gracia neighbourhood? (languages boundaries, or zones, remain though… However, Germany and Catalonia are not linked, yet, by wifi, that is why I use the verb “to shape” as a means to state that it is not already there but somehow you can see the shadow of something being elaborated approaching)

RAX!