[Thali-talk] Yaron's Weekly Update - 9/8/2014

[Yaron Goland]

Unless I'm misreading the documents I do not believe a password is needed to let one Wi-Fi direct client connect to another. In other words if I have say a Windows 7 laptop and an Android 4.x phone then they can, completely from software and with no user interaction, create a Wi-Fi direct group and join it.

The password you mentioned I believe is only needed when dealing with legacy clients. For example, if an Android 4.x phone creates a Wi-Fi direct group that group will show up on an iOS phone as just another SSID. But the Wi-Fi direct standard requires that the group be secured by a password if it's going to be joined by a legacy client. So that then brings up the password sharing problem you described below.

If we are to implement Wi-Fi direct functionality then we would probably only focus on Wi-Fi direct enabled clients and not worry much about legacy clients. The complexities of joining legacy clients just seem beyond the grasp of most people.

        Yaron        


________________________________________
From: Michael Rogers <michael at briarproject.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 3:36 AM
To: Yaron Goland; thali-talk at thaliproject.org
Subject: Re: [Thali-talk] Yaron's Weekly Update - 9/8/2014

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 08/09/14 21:29, Yaron Goland wrote:
> Last Week:
>
> * *TL;DR - Squashed remaining known bugs, wrote up **instructions
> for writing a Thali app*
> <http://www.thaliproject.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Guide_to_writing_apps_for_Thali>*and
>
>
published a **blog article* <http://www.goland.org/thalimesh/>*on my
> research on mesh solutions for Thali (short answer: there are no
> good ones right now, so Wi-Fi direct is probably our best
> fallback)*

Hi Yaron,

Thanks for writing this article. I agree there's no mesh solution
that's ready for mass deployment on off-the-shelf devices, so we need
to look at single-hop solutions. I also agree that the biggest problem
with Wi-Fi Direct is getting the password from the AP to the clients.
QR codes would work, but on Android the SSID and password are
generated randomly each time a group is created - will users be
willing to scan a new QR code every time they want to connect?

Although it doesn't have built-in support for groups, Bluetooth has a
nicer user experience on Android - once you know the other device's
MAC address you can connect at any later time without bothering the
user. On Android and Linux you can connect without pairing if you
disable Bluetooth's encryption and authentication (I assume you're
providing your own anyway). I don't know about the pairing situation
on Windows or Mac.

iOS devices won't communicate with non-iOS devices over Bluetooth, but
there's a new API that provides a wrapper around Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
Direct and normal Wi-Fi:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MultipeerConnectivity/Reference/MultipeerConnectivityFramework/

Some hype:

http://www.wired.com/2014/03/apple-multipeer-connectivity/

Cheers,
Michael
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)

iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJUDthBAAoJEBEET9GfxSfMHdUIAKJtF4LQ5eTtVQeHGgs/TcI0
TuCHqH6LanXx/xqIwYuzCmTY/l4j47uvfsnWCKxMKSmrQc5SHNM/e5Top/voWFIR
2KbYWGCue1NZb0/opOwXsJltPfIgUr1b2TsTjo2xrk80sNaSKGicwkoGh65ufAd2
hvckLOTqej9l5se9SXe4s94aP6Z6xlF1v5M/35OXDd3tNLiH0QmO4jLABqoly+Ok
JN60mWbnDklaYJyrtbyBvVbKwS7pZBTUm4dozy79S5ZXJeMsDNG5o+dKITKcd1hS
j5GDL7uICT4r0oq/v5m1INQxILVlFBt5d1wb9sI7I+VtcUuN4GGaSKbwXlFz778=
=2on3
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----