Anthony Levandowski's Latest Moonshot is a Peer-to-Peer Telecom Network Powered by Cryptocurrency (techcrunch.com) 32
A new mobile data network -- accompanied by the quinfecta of a website, Medium post, white paper, dedicated subreddit and Discord channel -- quietly launched late Tuesday evening in San Francisco, promising a new way to exchange data anonymously and at high speeds without relying on legacy carriers, and at a cheaper price. From a report: The peer-to-peer open source wireless network called Pollen Mobile will incentivize its users with cryptocurrency to run their own mini cell towers and build out the network's coverage in the Bay Area where the service is initially launching. Anthony Levandowski's autonomous vehicle technology startup Pronto AI is launching the project. Levandowski, a polarizing, early pioneer in the autonomous vehicle industry, was pardoned last year by former President Donald Trump after being sentenced to 18 months in prison on one count of stealing trade secrets. Why is an autonomous vehicle startup creating a decentralized telecom incentivized by cryptocurrency? The catalyst of Pollen Mobile stemmed from Pronto's need for reliable, affordable mobile connectivity for its autonomous vehicles, Levandowski, who is still CEO of Pronto, told TechCrunch in a text message conversation. Pronto has been using Pollen internally for its AVs for months. "The reason why is simple, we needed reliable, affordable mobile connectivity for our AVs and we couldn't find it," he wrote. "So we built our own and realized it could be something others want." He added later: "Necessity is the mother of invention." Further reading: Anthony Levandowski Closes His Church of AI.
So let me get this striaght (Score:5, Insightful)
No thanks. This would hard to swallow being paid real money.
Re:So let me get this striaght (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything about it screams scam. Crypto currency, Reddit and Discord.
It doesn't sound like it will ever work either. The stated use case if self driving cars, where the very last thing you want is an ad-hoc, unreliable network powered by people trying to get rich of crypto scams.
Re:So let me get this striaght (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest red flag should be this part:
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Don't forget theft of trade secrets. A pardon only erases this legally, but everyone should still remember what he did. Now the idea might be a good one, but it tainted irredeemably by using a scam of cryptocurrency for payment. Either the guy is an utter moron who believes in cryptocurrency, or he assumes his customers are morons, or he's trying to build a base so that his own crypto holdings rise in value.
I doubt this story would even be here on slashdot except for the crypto angle because the slashdot
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Yeah, I wonder who they think will be stupid enough to do this. First, you get to spend your own money to buy their 'tower'. Then, your ISP cuts you off for violating the TOS (pretty sure most ISPs do not allow you to provide service to others). And you get 'paid' (if at all) if fake money. What could go wrong?
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Yeah, I wonder who they think will be stupid enough to do this. First, you get to spend your own money to buy their 'tower'. Then, your ISP cuts you off for violating the TOS (pretty sure most ISPs do not allow you to provide service to others). And you get 'paid' (if at all) if fake money. What could go wrong?
To be fair, most ISPs are just fine with folks running a femtocell. And, by law in the US, those have to be open to EVERYONE for 911 calls. So...
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Which ISPs are 'just fine' with that? Name one. Here are excerpts from Spectrum's Acceptable Use Policy: The Service is designed for personal and family use (residential use only) within a single household. ... Subscriber will not use, or enable others to use, the Service to operate any type of business or commercial enterprise, including, but not limited to, IP address translation or similar facilities intended to provide additional access. Subscriber will not resell or redistribute, or enable others t
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Which ISPs are 'just fine' with that? Name one.
Fine with running a femtocell? AT&T, Cox Cable, Spectrum, Verizon. Do I need to continue? Jesus, AT&T sold branded ones for home users.. But I could use a Verizon one if I wanted. I had a Sprint one for about 5 years.
Here are excerpts from Spectrum's Acceptable Use Policy
I wasn't arguing that Spectrum can or cannot ban this shit. I was simply showing that the blanket statement of "pretty sure most ISPs do not allow you to provide service to others" was not true. There are always exceptions.
You know what else Sprint can't do? Stop me from sharing
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Those femtocells can only be used by devices which are registered with the respective carriers. They aren't going to work with devices that are 'anonymous and don't rely on legacy carriers'.
When reading, it helps to look at ALL the words. It doesn't say you can't do NAT. It says you can't do NAT to run a business or commercial enterprise selling access. You know, the exact thing proposed here.
So again, show me a single ISP that doesn't care if you resell their service to people who are not their custome
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Those femtocells can only be used by devices which are registered with the respective carriers. .
BULLSHIT. They will handle a 911 call for ANYONE in range if there isn't a true cell tower in range.
So again, show me a single ISP that doesn't care if you resell their service to people who are not their customers.
Oh sure. Just change the fucking terms mid-discussion. That's not what you specified at the start. Here is YOUR fucking quote:
Then, your ISP cuts you off for violating the TOS (pretty sure most ISPs do not allow you to provide service to others).
I can PROVIDE service to anyone I want. I CANNOT resell it. Never disputed that. Apparently your tiny brain can't even remember what YOU said 3 FUCKING POSTS AGO. I gave plenty of examples that don't violate anyone's TOS. I can PROVIDE service to anyone I want. I only took issue w
Wait, are cryptocurrencies Ok again? (Score:2)
Aren't crypto [slashdot.org] currencies [slashdot.org] evil [slashdot.org]?
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Aren't crypto [slashdot.org] currencies [slashdot.org] evil [slashdot.org]?
Crypto currencies are a Ponzi scheme.
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Anthony Levandowski is probably more evil than crypto currencies. Certainly, it's the kind of scam he likes to operate.
Like Helium? (Score:1)
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Which if true, should indicate that crypto itself is not necessary for the success of the system.
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Which if true, should indicate that crypto itself is not necessary for the success of the system.
The people who are into the ponzi scheme early heavily pump it with claims of how much money they've made. Look up "helium mining" on reddit--it's not about the network, it's about the money.
This one is strong with buzzwords (Score:5, Funny)
Peer-to-peer? Cryptocurrency? I'd be screaming "sign me in!" where it not for the fact that they haven't mentioned any NFT offerings.
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Peer-to-peer? Cryptocurrency? I'd be screaming "sign me in!" where it not for the fact that they haven't mentioned any NFT offerings.
Does "quinfecta" do nothing for you?
Apparently it means '5 things done' - comes to something when you have to learn Latin to keep up with "techology"
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
Levandowski, a polarizing, early pioneer in the autonomous vehicle industry, was pardoned last year by former President Donald Trump after being sentenced to 18 months in prison on one count of stealing trade secrets
Levandowski, who is still CEO of Pronto
A convicted criminal, being the CEO of a company. What could possibly go wrong?
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Not much worse than the Ivy League graduates leading other companies.
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A convicted criminal, being the CEO of a company. What could possibly go wrong?
That's a pretty dumb statement.
This guy can be trusted (Score:2)
BINGO! (Score:4, Funny)
I got buzzword bingo just from the summary. Almost filled my card.
"autonomous vehicle technology startup"
"decentralized"
"telecom"
"incentivized"
"cryptocurrency"
"mobile connectivity"
"legacy carriers"
"AI"
BONUS WORDS:
"18 months in prison"
"stealing trade secrets"
"polarizing"
"early pioneer"
Anybody else need a new card? Mine's full.
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Congrats, your Bingo card qualifies you for a Slashdot NFT!
Already done? (Score:2)
Isn't Helium essentially the same thing?
Sure, misses encryption, but that can be added..
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Helium's IoT packets are smaller but basically yea....
wow I am old (Score:2)
History may not repeat but it does rhyme.
I immediately thought of at least two different version of this same idea proposed in the past.
First, there was FON, I remember they even mailed me a Linksys WRT54G. Here is a random Google result that tells you the date, circa 2005! https://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/linksys-router-wrt54ggs.html
Second, there was a open project to get everyone to run Free Software with a common SSID; I remember going to a talk about it at a USENIX conference; the end result was
Crypto Usecase (Score:3)
I've thought long and hard about blockchain technologies. I've come to the conclusion that there are only two use cases where blockchain beats a centralized server. One is as a dynamic decentralized DNS service. It's a bit less efficient than current DNS but can't be nuked by a state actor trying to shut off internet during internal strife or shut off an enemy's internet in a cyber attack. But you could also lose your web address to a bored teenager in Moldova if you're not careful with no recourse.
The second use case is for managing payments/datastreams in a last-mile mesh network of multiple private actors. Data would be encapsulated in a lightweight NFT on a proof-of-stake blockchain. Each network will mint its own coin representing the total bandwidth available to the system. The coins from the backbone carriers act as reserve currency that all coins are equivalent to. Each pathway has both a temporal and a monetary cost. It might be cheaper to route your data along less used networks but will increase the latency. The route chosen is based on settings in the user's router. Routing data through congested trunks would be more expensive. It automates surge pricing and load balancing.
This proposed mobile data network sounds like it would be the second use case above. It's not. It's not a mesh network. There aren't multiple providers. It doesn't use proof-of-stake and is thus too slow to tokenize broadband data. It's a scam by a scam artist and thief.
Helium? (Score:2)
Haven't we already seen this scam with the Helium network?
Sell overpriced hardware to perform a super specialized function of enabling communication on your Wireless network, pay out network node owners in your own token, said token is used to pay for access to the network, token price collapses because nobody actually buys into a network that isn't built out for any meaningful, critical application.
Nah I'm good.