Meshnet activists rebuilding the internet from scratch
This sounds to me like a next-generation version of UUCP (I think it was called) from back in the day. I wondered when the PRISM, etc. scandals broke if something like that would make a comeback.
What’s needed for this to take off (apart from Americans taking enough time away from their addiction to attention-whoring on Facebook to recognize the privacy problem) is a turnkey implementation. If it requires an arcane installation and setup procedure that serves more the desire of Linux nerds to fiddle about in the innards of their computers than practical uses of same by non-nerds, it will go nowhere. If the contributors to its development poo-pooh Windows platforms and smugly refuse to develop any implementations for same, it will suffer from self-induced limits on scale which could hinder its utility and sustainability.
On the other hand, the Kickstarter effort to build a meshnet box, one which from the sounds of it would be as simple to set up as a DSL or cable modem and similarly compatible across devices and operating systems, suggests that this is indeed being taken into account.