We’re proud to share the news that HacDC’s Project Byzantium has won a grant from the Information Security Coalition to continue research and development for the next six calendar months! Project Byzantium is an effort to develop Byzantium Linux, a live distribution of Linux for rapidly and easily constructing ad-hoc wireless mesh networks during emergencies. This distribution aims to assist relief efforts by providing flexible networking infrastructure and services. Byzantium developers will be putting the grant money toward additional equipment on which to test and debug Byzantium Linux as well as hardware to experiment with integrating Byzantium Linux into amateur radio-related data communications networks. The project’s final milestone will be v0.4 of Byzantium Linux “somewhen in August of 2013.” Congratulations to our Project Byzantium team!
In related news, Project Byzantium was a recent runner up for an Access Innovation Award, a set of grants to accelerate projects working in several problem spaces including making networks resilient to blackouts. The team traveled to New York City for the awards ceremony in December 2012 and report that they were honored to have been selected as finalists.
UPDATE: Byzantium Linux v0.3a is out!