Editor 's note : The staff at CNN.com has been intrigued by the journalism of Vice , an independent media company and Web site based in Brooklyn , New York . Motherboard.tv is Vice 's site devoted to the overlap between culture and technology . The reports , which are being produced solely by Vice , reflect a very transparent approach to journalism , where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process . We believe this unique approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers . Brooklyn , New York ( Motherboard.tv ) -- You 're on the Internet . What does that mean ? Most likely , it means one of a handful of telecommunications providers is middle-manning your information from point A to point B . Fire off an e-mail or a tweet , broadcast a live stream or upload video to YouTube , and you 're relying on vast networks of fiber optic cables deep underground and undersea , working with satellites high above , to move your data around the world , and to bring the world to your fingertips . It 's an infrastructure largely out of sight and mind . AT & T , Level 3 , Hurricane Electric , Tata Indicom -- to most these are simply invisible magicians performing the act of getting one online and kicking . To many open-source advocates , however , these are a few of the big , dirty names responsible for what they see as the Web 's rapid consolidation . The prospect of an irreparably centralized Internet , a physical Internet in the hands of a shrinking core of so-called Tier 1 transit networks , keeps Isaac Wilder up at night . Wilder is the 21-year-old co-founder of the Free Network Foundation . Motherboard , VICE 's science and technology offshoot , first caught up with Wilder at Zuccotti Park during the fledgling days of Occupy Wall Street . The Kansas City native seemed to be running on little sleep . He 'd gone hoarse from chanting relentlessly over the first three days of a populist movement that would soon sweep the country and the world . But there was an undeniable urgency and excitement when Wilder told us about the efforts of the FNF , a non-profit , peer-to-peer communications initiative striving to liberate the global Internet from corporate and governmental interference . It all sounded lofty and arcane and way , way over our heads . But Wilder seemed committed enough to his drop in the bucket of global revolution , which comes in the form of nine-foot-tall Freedom Towers that beam out free , secure Wi-Fi to occupied sites and underserviced communities , that we wanted to hear more . See the rest of Free the Network at Motherboard.tv . If the argument for mesh networking , a sort of pirate radio Internet scheme that allows people to talk to one another online through no middle man , is that a centralized 'Net lends itself to the sort of surveillance and censorship that , however futile , strokes the Internet kill switch of science fiction , is there a way to circumvent that system altogether ? Is there a way to build a new network from the bottom up ? To occupy a fresh Internet outside the existing confines of the Web ? Or is that all just the stuff of ideological fantasy ? To check the pulse of the Internet -- and to get a feel for what life 's like in the digital nerve center of what 's arguably the first fully Web-fueled social movement in America -- Motherboard has been following Wilder and Tyrone Greenfield , communications director for the Free Network Foundation , for the past half year . Through the thick of Occupy marches , in squats and test-lab offices , on rooftops and all places in between , we saw Wilder , Greenfield and the FNF building and perfecting their Towers and their humble , cooperatively owned , physical Internet . We even broke a story that popped off on the Internet in the immediate wake of the New York Police Department 's November 17 raid on Zuccotti Park . We traveled with Wilder to a Department of Sanitation garage shortly after he was released from a 36-hour stint in jail . He was looking for things lost in the early morning sweep of Occupy 's epicenter : cash , his backpack and laptop , Zuccotti 's Freedom Tower . What he found next to a wet heap of clothing and tents were a number of laptops splayed in rows . They appeared mangled and snarled . One was even stripped of its back casing . Whether Occupy 's laptops were purposefully destroyed , or merely crunched under the hydraulic mash of a Sanitation garbage truck , remains unclear . To be sure , after the incident we contacted the NYPD , who forwarded us to Sanitation . Sanitation was tasked with hauling away all the abandoned property from Zuccotti to an off-site garage , where demonstrators were later allowed to rummage for their belongings . A Sanitation representative told Motherboard there had been no directive to destroy property , but that he was n't surprised to hear that some items , including laptops , had maybe been mishandled or misplaced . In the end , what we came up with is a short documentary called Free the Network . It 's a story about big dreams and cloudy missions , about complex affiliations and what happens when a DIY hack-tech movement confronts the force of the state . But beyond that , it 's a story about the incredibly high stakes of living networked in today 's world . We all have skin in this game . Remember : You 're on the Internet .
VICE catches up with Isaac Wilder , founder of the Free Network Foundation . Foundation strives to liberate the Internet from corporate and governmental interference . VICE: