U.S. Promotes Network to Foil Digital Spying

SAYADA, Tunisia — This Mediterranean fishing town, with its low, whitewashed buildings and sleepy port, is an unlikely spot for an experiment in rewiring the global Internet. But residents here have a surprising level of digital savvy and sharp memories of how the Internet can be misused.

A group of academics and computer enthusiasts have used $2.8 million from the U.S. State Department to help  Sayada become a test site for a local network that is physically independent from the Internet and comprised of antennas scattered about on rooftops.

This mesh network is designed so dissidents abroad can communicate without fear of surveillance. The mesh software is a redesign of systems that experts across Europe have been running for years, says the New America Foundation’s Sascha Meinrath.

Inexpensive wireless routers are affixed to rooftops, tied to balconies, and screwed to the ledges of apartment buildings. Provided each router has an unhindered view of one or two others and the mesh software has been set up, the routers automatically form a mesh network, says New American Foundation analyst Ryan Gerety. The routers also can supply access to anyone with a wireless device in range.

Since this mesh project began three years ago, its original aim — foiling government spies — has become an awkward subject for United States government officials who backed the project and some of the technical experts carrying it out. That is because the N.S.A., as described in secret documents leaked by the former contractor Edward J. Snowden, has been shown to be a global Internet spy with few, if any, peers.

The Radio Free Asia nonprofit has contributed $1 million to investigate multiple overseas mesh network deployments. Meanwhile, Harvard University professor Jonathan Zittrain says the proven resiliency of mesh networks could be their biggest selling point, with privacy being a bonus.

The citizens of Sayada — population 14,000 — are more focused on using the mesh for local governance and community building than beating surveillance since President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in 2011, said Nizar Kerkeni, 39, a resident and professor of computer science at the nearby University of Monastir.

The mesh network blankets areas of town including the main street, the weekly market, the town hall and the train station, and users have access to a local server containing Wikipedia in French and Arabic, town street maps, 2,500 free books in French, and an app for secure chatting and file sharing.  Full Article