I’m sick of hearing about how we need to cave in to repressive governments and throttle back Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other information services and accept Web censorship and limits on free expression. Get the hell off my cloud.

“If a full-surveillance world prevents us from speaking, then we need to make another platform where freedom of speech and freedom of thought can be maintained,” as futurist Ian Pearson puts it.

“I’ve written a number of times about jewelery nets and sponge nets. These could do the trick. With very short-range communication directly between tiny devices that each of us wears just like jewellery, a sponge network can be built that provides zillions of paths from A to B, hopping from device to device till it gets there.

No ISPs needed

“Each device is autonomous. Each shares data with its immediate neighbors, and route dynamically according to a range of algorithms available to them. They can route data from A to B so that every packet goes by a different route of need be. Even without any encryption, only A and B can see the full message.

“The capability to make these kinds of devices is almost here. If some government officials don’t like it, well, so what? Right now, I don’t have a lot of respect for government.”

Right on. Anybody out there developing these nets? Let’s hear from you!