PierMesh logo

PierMesh

What is PierMesh?
A new lightweight internet for marginalized people most impacted by the whims of tech giants

- A LoRa (long range low power radio) and other technologies (Halow at the moment) based mesh network
- FOSS (free and open source down to the firmware and potentially beyond)
- Easy and cheap (around $17) or free depending on adoption to connect to
- Encrypted

Status: Prototype complete, firmware actively under development by utopicwork/Agie that will enable transceiver only setup (to make things as cheap as possible), library over lora in development, peer to peer cryptography being formulated

How will it work?

Seamlessly, the network will be accessible via web interface for end users and via multiple interfaces for operators which can be exposed to the wider internet if desired

Socials: utopicwork on tumblr and bluesky
Links: piermesh.net
Font: ubuntu

Other notes:
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- Support for operators/users with DID is built in at the core via an easily changed display name
- Support for setting fields to any language available via Unicode characters will be built in
- It is not social media itself it is an alternative to the existing internet infrastructure, it's less Mastodon and more ISP
- It will be a lot slower than broadband at least at the beginning, this is not a 1 to 1 replacement
- Bridging with Halow will give us comparable to faster speed then broadband sooner rather then later though the LoRa nodes will still be a core feature of the network at least until Halow is at least a bit cheaper/smaller or an open source drop in for LoRa chips exists

Updates:
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November 26th, 2024: The prototype is cleaned up and available here: https://codeberg.org/Forthplace

November 23rd, 2024: The prototype code is out now https://git.utopic.work/PierMesh/piermesh/src/branch/dev. I need to do a big cleanup of the code and docs which will be out Monday night but for now you can see what I've been doing.

November 12th, 2024: PierMesh is almost ready for prototype release, it will be out by November 21st. There will be four artifacts released: modified Meshtastic firmware with a static web server run from a micro sd and the gps module turned off (at least for the transceivers we're using), a Pyodide version of PierMesh, a JS bridge for reading and sending messages on the http api and a serial enabled version of the code which was my main focus. Transport cryptography is done. I made an image protocol for sending art across PierMesh and tons more. I'll do a proper long post about everything when it's in shape. But keep an eye on here!

August 17th, 2024: Cryptography needed more work then expected as did rectifying codebase changes with existing code. Currently I am balancing a lot of different updates but I believe that doing it this way will get things done faster. Here's what I'm working on: a better action paradigm, object oriented filtering, submessages, easier protocol creation and a lot more. If you're looking for another demo or more code keep a look out for those soon.

August 10th, 2024: Let's just call them weekly updates. Regardless. Simplified the creation of protocols by defining message types as classes so there's no need to soft define messages though the ability remains to do so. Almost finished with Transport encryption prototyping along with Catch functionality and Hopper functionality. Created an Index class for Daisy in order to be able to search for Catchs easily and across the network. Also created a repository for Daisy, though it's a WIP, because the code's becoming a bit too complex to remain just part of the PierMesh code.

August 3rd, 2024: Pre prototype documentation and refactor/cleanup. You can find the docs here: https://git.utopic.work/PierMesh/piermesh/src/branch/main/docs#system-overview. Also my apologies for being a couple hours late with this, still getting the hang of weekly updates.

July 26th, 2024: Pre prototype release https://git.utopic.work/piermesh/piermesh along with a ton of e2ee work and TUI development. Each Friday I will be doing an update here from now on to keep people updated.

July 2, 2024: Apologies for the wait but there's big news, there is now a repo for the project: https://git.utopic.work/piermesh/piermesh and we have a Web UI prototype where I show off those features and talk about the state of the project: https://iframe.mediadelivery.net/play/264069/870325b5-7ffb-4455-9fc3-add5d801575f

May 30, 2024: I've been architecting this month and handling some other projects but I'm back to focusing on PierMesh. Today I set up some new hardware for PierMesh: a security coprocessor over usb: https://utopic.work/devlogs/logs/002024/05.html

April 28, 2024: You can now subscribe to an RSS feed of my work (including PierMesh) with this link: https://utopic.work/devlogs/feed.rss

April 24, 2024: Devlogs for all my projects can be found here now: https://utopic.work/devlogs/ currently it's not filtered by projects but at some point Ill create that functionality

April 23, 2024: Refactoring tests succeeding, breakthrough on n dimensional networking

April 14, 2024: Cut text packet size by 75%+ using LZMA, got my Tumblr back

April 11, 2024: End to end encryption core working, full implementation is almost complete. Packet templating implemented. Modular/object oriented code refactor almost complete. Work Tumblr was deleted for some unknown reason, moved entirely to Bluesky

April 4, 2024: Hopper begins development, Microplane officially reaches prototype status

April 2, 2024: Daisy and Catch reach prototype status

March 31, 2024: Development begins on Daisy, Bubble, Catch

March 29, 2024: First successful html transmission/parsing

March 19, 2024: Website updates, started components list

March 15, 2024: First successful programmatic transmission test, arbitrary JSON can now be sent and received.

March 5th, 2024: Site created, more coming soon

Components:
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Microplane: algorithm to split files/data into properly sized packets for LoRa

Status: prototype

Catch: DNS analog

Status: prototype

Daisy: bson disk based distributed database

Status: prototype


Hopper: algorithm for consuming other network resources

Status: in development

Bubble: algorithm for peer to peer communication

Status: in development

Siph: multi dimensional software defined network stack

Status: breakthrough due to discovery of hypergraphs, planning close to prototyping

Pail: Daisy support for distributed graphs (gardens) and hypergraphs (greenhouses)

Status: planning

Sessions: Connection sessions to maintain continuous peer to peer connection

Status: planning


Contact info: info@piermesh.net

Support the project:

Cashapp: $cmder
Venmo: AGIEF
Liberapay: utopicwork
Ko-fi: wizdevgirl

We are looking for funding, if this project sounds interesting to you and you'd like to help please let us know, this project is primarily done by two trans women with precarious housing so any backing will go a long way