FrogNet / Living Network
Foundation

The Living Network

FrogNet derives the network from what is actually reachable. Nodes discover, route, elect services, split and heal without asking applications to understand the topology.

Discovery

Nodes learn reachable FrogNet hosts recursively. Reachability and measured RTT feed route construction.

Routing

Routes are per destination. A lower-latency indirect path can beat a direct one. Healthy incumbents are held to prevent needless churn.

Split and heal

A partition becomes independent ponds using what each side can still reach. Restored connectivity triggers discovery; discovery converges on the newly reachable topology.

Seattle pond Internet brokerWireGuard transit · not network authority New York pond 900 MHz bearer
A pond continues locally when the WAN path disappears. When connectivity returns, discovery runs again and converges on what is reachable.

The Internet extension is part of the path, not the authority.

The current broker publishes channel information and provides WireGuard transit between sites. Nodes pull the published channel list and update their local broker state from it. The broker does not push commands into the pond and does not own application Memory.

Security boundary: every cross-site packet using the broker path transits the broker, and a live broker compromise can expose traffic at the forwarding seam. FrogNet limits the consequence by keeping authority and valuable persistent state out of the broker: it is not the Memory store, application database, naming authority or service-election authority. Loss of the broker leaves each surviving pond able to operate locally. See the complete boundary and mitigation.

Linux is visible.

FrogNet uses the operating system instead of pretending it is an appliance abstraction.

Interfaces, routing tables, dnsmasq, WireGuard, processes, systemd services, filesystem state and kernel networking remain inspectable by the operator. The simulator models the same mechanisms so topology and discovery-convergence work can be exercised before physical deployment.

Persistent node identity is separate from mutable address and route state. Ponds, choruses, nodes and tunnels are distinct scopes in the current implementation.

Recorded field evidence

Multi-city network

Qualified

Ten-node development network spanning multiple cities and heterogeneous paths.

900 MHz

Qualified

A FrogNet radio node remained on the mesh while moving through Queens.

Physical actuation

Qualified

A value changed in New York travelled through the Seattle state path and caused a lamp in New York to change state.