What Is The Othernet
Imagine another internet. Location specific, not through geofencing, but through the physical limits of its infrastructure. There are webpages here that do not exist there. They are not meant for you. Like a street mural, this internet island becomes a projection and a reflection of the network neighborhood.
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The Othernet began with a vision of internet islands: a world of tiny independent networked communities with their own character and rules. Its a project about the possibility of escape from systems that seem inevitable. A practical course of action for reclaiming the potential of networks that are shaped by the communities they serve.
The Othernet is another network in Bed Stuy – new infrastructure and applications that enable neighbors to browse and create “web” content. The result is an alternative constellation of web pages that are only accessible in Bed Stuy and are made by neighbors.
The Daily Green has an excellent interview with Othernet creator Dhruv Mehrotra
Back in 2003, my roommate Erin and I set up a Linksys WRT54G with flashed firmware and a couple of cantennas on our rooftop in Downtown Brooklyn so that we could provide free internet access for our neighbors for about 2-3 blocks in each direction.
We installed forum software to host a bulletin board, we scanned in menus from all of our local restaurants for people to download, and we hosted minutes from our local community board meetings.
To make it easy to access, we posted flyers around the neighborhood and we made it part of a larger city-wide collective called NYCWireless that encouraged people to set up public guest networks to increase internet access to the community.
While I can’t remember how many people used our node, it was significant and meaningful enough that folks would donate Amazon gift cards to us as a thank you every month.
For reasons civic, privacy, and political, community lans feel like a really important idea again.
