Project Byzantium called to assist relief efforts in New York.

As a result of the damage done to New York City by Hurricane Sandy the week before last, Project Byzantium was contacted by representatives of several NGOs and non-profit organizations we've been in contact with as a result of our work on community wireless mesh networks. We were asked if Byzantium Linux might be useful in assisting relief efforts in New York City by restoring communications on the local level. As this is one of our primary use cases, we responded in the affirmative, and were told that we might be asked to go to New York City to help out. It wasn't a definite thing at the time, but just in case we immediately began work on a new version of Byzantium Linux which took into account some of the information we'd been given about the situation. The new version is ultra-stripped down and has almost no user interaction. To save compute cycles we pulled out the hosted applications so that there would be one less thing for users to worry about. We also took the configuration code out of the control panel and wrote a daemon that automatically configured every wireless network interface it found on the system, effectively turning it into wireless infrastructure inside of sixty seconds. We also replaced the IP routing protocol with OLSR because there was a small Commotion Wireless network in Brooklyn, and representatives of the community wanted to extend its coverage rather than replace it. The Commotion project was kind enough to send us their configuration file so that our respective projects would seamlessly and automatically support each other. This might form the foundation for the next official release of Byzantium but I think I'm getting ahead of myself. Through our respective networks of contacts, we put out word of what we thought we'd need: Spare laptop and netbook computers, USB keys, blank CDs, and information. Specifically, information about the state of the communications and power grids in New York City, contact info for people whom we could contact, and places to stay. Over the next few days we slowly gathered information about cellular coverage, power, water, and food distribution in areas that were hit the hardest by Hurricane Sandy. Then, last Friday afternoon we recieved word from one of the people we'd been in contact with: Get to New York City. We dropped everything and did. From the get-go, logistics were sketchy. We didn't have many specifics on what we had to do until we actually got to New York City, though given our expertise in wireless networks we figured that would be a large part of what we'd be working on. Sitwon, Haxwithaxe and I stopped off at the halfway point of the drive to stretch, check our e-mail, and make a few phone calls. After we caught up and discussed things a bit we decided to get a hotel room for the evening in New Jersey and figure things out rather than drive straight through to New York City without a plan or real options. Haxwithaxe and I installed the Sandy respin of Byzantium Linux on a few handfuls of USB keys and programmed our hand-held amateur radios for NYC-specific frequencies and repeaters. Project Byzantium received word later that evening from one of our contacts - go to the FEMA disaster relief facility in Brooklyn and hook up with relief teams on site. They'd set up on the top floor of the Ikea, a landmark of considerable size to be sure. Somewhat serendipitously we'd misjudged how difficult it would be to get there (post-Sandy traffic to and from New York being somewhat unpredictable) so we were on site a good two hours early. We ran a radio check and an inventory, and then placed a phone call to F-, who then asked us to scout a couple of square blocks to see what places had power and get a lay of the land. We got back into Sitwon's SUV and did so, and mapped out some likely installation locations for wireless nodes at the same time. At the appointed time we met up with F-, who then conducted us inside to the FEMA relief office upstairs. Along the way he laid out what they wanted to accomplish, we told him what we needed to do the job, and then set to work. We'd been given use of a table in the Ikea food court within ready distance of a power drop, so we taped down an extension cord, unpacked our kit, and set to work. Sitwon, Haxwithaxe, and I got automatic gateway configuration and propagation working and we tested interoperability with an existing Commotion Wireless router. It was seamless. No trouble at all. On the other hand, the net.connection at Ikea was sketchy at best. It wouldn't stay online for longer than a few minutes at a time so our mesh's uplink kept bouncing. F- informed us that the wi