????幾周前，有一個叫做FireChat的信息應用發布了。第一眼看去，它好像和本來就已經很擁擠的應用市場上的其他同類應用沒有什么區別，但實際上它是一款具有潛在顛覆性的應用，說不定還是自1995年國際集線箱開始成形以來，對于互聯網來說最重要的一件大事。

????（可能這時你會問：“等一下……你說什么？為什么？”）

????FireChat使用了一個iOS 7尚未充分開發的功能——“多點連線框架”。這個功能聽起來很新潮又很復雜，其實它只是意味著一臺蘋果設備（iPhone、iPad甚至是iPod touch）無需使用互聯網就可以與另一臺蘋果設備互聯。這句話的后半部分是最重要的地方，值得再強調一遍：這臺設備不需要傳統的網絡連接——無論是3G還是無線網，它可以和另一臺設備建立自己的網絡。也就是說，兩臺智能設備，通過自己的無線信號或藍牙進行互聯，這就是所謂的點對點連接，也即蘋果的點對點共享功能的原理。

????（你可能會想：“我看不出來它有什么顛覆性，或者有什么特別重要的地方。”）

????對！但是首先我們回溯到1995年，當時互聯網還比較年輕和混亂，很多科技宅坐在電腦前面聯絡其它的科技宅，這些科技宅的電腦就是連接點，同時也是節點——即其他人加入網絡的接入點，而其他接入網絡的人又創造了另一個節點?；旧希粋€人的電腦可以直接連到另一個人的電腦，這樣就形成了一個“電腦鏈”。一個個電腦鏈組成了一個所謂網狀網絡。在很長的一段時間里，互聯網都保持著這樣的形態，也就是由大量“小螞蟻”構成的完全分散化的計算機群。隨著互聯網的發展，互聯網出現了一個重要的哲學上和物理上的變遷。它不再是一個均勻分布的網狀網絡，而依賴于一個個中心，也就是集線箱?？纯磳嶓w互聯網的地圖，你就會明白這一點。

????（看到這里，大家會問：“那么這是一種不同的連接方式了，但它是一種更好的方式嗎？”）

????這是個好問題。不過答案是否定的，當然不是，至少現在還不是。多點連接存在嚴重的缺陷，而且現在FireChat的連接范圍僅限于30英尺內的另一部安裝了FireChat的設備。但是——這是一個重大的、關鍵的、重要的“但是”——網狀網絡的運作方式是，網絡的規模越大，連接就越好，它的連接范疇也就越廣。因此如果你在一個體育館里，這里還有許多使用著FireChat的其他人，那么一瞬間你就有了一個很強大的網絡，而且它的范疇也遠遠不止３０英尺。

????（“怎么會這樣？”）

????想象一下“串行”理論，或者很久以前消防隊員排成的傳遞水桶的隊列。一臺設備連接到另一臺大概20英尺遠的設備，這臺設備又連接到另一臺大概10英尺遠的設備，距離疊加了起來，但是網絡仍然存在，而且其中的每個環節都增強了這個鏈條（而且每臺設備都連接了不只一臺設備——所以叫“網狀”網絡）。兩個相隔1000英尺遠的人，通過20或30個人產生的鏈接就可以互聯。這個網絡的直徑可能達到幾英里遠，理論上甚至可以覆蓋整個城鎮。

????A few weeks ago, a messaging app called FireChat launched. It looks, at first, like just about any other messaging app in an already very crowded market, but FireChat is sneakily subversive and quite possibly the most important thing to happen to the Internet since international network hubs began to form in 1995.

????(This is the moment when you ask: "Wait ... what? Why?")

????FireChat uses a criminally underexploited feature in iOS 7 called the Multipeer Connectivity Framework. This sounds fancy and complicated, but all it means is that one Apple (AAPL) device (an iPhone, an iPad, even an iPod touch) can connect to another without using the Internet. That last part is the most important and worth repeating: The device need not have a traditional network connection -- 3G, wireless, whatever -- but is instead creating its own network with another device. Two smart, connected machines, communicating via their own wireless signals, or Bluetooth, to talk to one another: This is what's called a peer-to-peer connection. It's also how Apple's Airdrop feature works.

????(You're probably thinking: "I don't see how this is subversive, or particularly important.")

????Right! Well, let's first go back to 1995, or even earlier, when the Internet was young and wild and mostly on university campuses, where various nerds in front of computers connected with various other nerds in front of computers, and those nerds' computers were connection points, but also nodes -- an entry point for others to join the network, and in so doing create another node, too. Basically, one person's computer could directly access the other person's computer, and so on, along a chain of computers. This evenly distributed, wholly interconnected web of machines is called a mesh network. It's the way the Internet was, mostly, for a long while: entirely decentralized constellations of connectivity among a vastness of, well, nothingness, 'net-wise. As the Internet grew, an important philosophical and physical shift occurred. Rather than an evenly distributed mesh network, the Internet became dependent on centers -- hubs for all those spokes. Look at a map of the physical Internet, and you'll see.

????(At which point you might ask: "So this is a different way to connect, but is it better?")

????Great question! No, of course not. Not yet. Multipeer connectivity has serious drawbacks, and FireChat only works when you are within about 30 feet of another person with a device that has FireChat. But -- and this is a huge, crucial, important "but" -- the way a mesh network works is that the larger the network, the greater the connections, the farther its reach. So if you are, say, in a stadium with a bunch of people using devices with FireChat, then presto: You have a rather robust network, over distances much greater than 30 feet.

????("How's that?")

????Think of a daisy chain, or an old-timey firefighter bucket brigade. One device connecting to another, maybe 20 feet away, and that one connects to another, maybe 10 feet away, and so on and so forth, the distances pile up, but the network remains, and each link is a link that strengthens the chain (and connects to more than one device -- hence the "mesh"). Two people that are 1,000 feet away from one another are able to connect using the links caused by 20 or 30 other devices. The network could be miles in diameter, even. Or the size of an entire town, theoretically.