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Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#31

Post by btrask »

voltagex_ wrote: post #17
Animats wrote: post #14

Today we're announcing the availability of this API across all Android devices running Google Play services 11.0 and up. Of course, Google had to lock up peer to peer communication by tying it to their online store. It's also unencrypted and unauthenticated, so you don't want to use this for home control.

It used to be that these kinds of protocols would be reversed and reimplemented pretty quickly. See Pidgin (GAIM) and countless other instant messengers. I wonder what's happened - I see a lot less reverse engineering going on these days.

Having done a fair share of reverse engineering in my time, I think the reason is that it's boring. Sure, at first it's fun: it's all about constantly solving new puzzles. But eventually you realize you're in a maze of twisty passages, all different. The challenges are artificial and meaningless and will continue forever as long as pointless incompatibility is incentivized.

On the one hand, the people who can reverse engineer stuff got too good: either they got tired of it, or they're getting paid big bucks to do it professionally. On the other, (perhaps this is jaded) new programmers are just learning scripting/web technologies and never peel back the covers of how the system actually works.

Perhaps reverse engineering proprietary products should be a mandatory tour of duty for young programmers, like military service in some countries. :)

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#32

Post by throwaway2048 »

voltagex_ wrote: post #17
Animats wrote: post #14

Today we're announcing the availability of this API across all Android devices running Google Play services 11.0 and up. Of course, Google had to lock up peer to peer communication by tying it to their online store. It's also unencrypted and unauthenticated, so you don't want to use this for home control.

It used to be that these kinds of protocols would be reversed and reimplemented pretty quickly. See Pidgin (GAIM) and countless other instant messengers. I wonder what's happened - I see a lot less reverse engineering going on these days.

https://microg.org/

Google play store APIs and protocols ARE being reverse engineered and re implemented.

I run microG with store apps with no issues with everything I have tried.

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#33

Post by [deleted] »

voltagex_ wrote: post #17
Animats wrote: post #14

Today we're announcing the availability of this API across all Android devices running Google Play services 11.0 and up. Of course, Google had to lock up peer to peer communication by tying it to their online store. It's also unencrypted and unauthenticated, so you don't want to use this for home control.

It used to be that these kinds of protocols would be reversed and reimplemented pretty quickly. See Pidgin (GAIM) and countless other instant messengers. I wonder what's happened - I see a lot less reverse engineering going on these days.

[deleted]

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#34

Post by throwaway2048 »

Animats wrote: post #14

Today we're announcing the availability of this API across all Android devices running Google Play services 11.0 and up. Of course, Google had to lock up peer to peer communication by tying it to their online store. It's also unencrypted and unauthenticated, so you don't want to use this for home control.

There is an alternative to google play store API.

https://microg.org/

They are an open source re implementation of play store APIs that work with play store apps, without all the bloated tracking and spy... sorry "telemetry", and without giving Google remote root on your phone, with the ability to selectively install and do whatever the hell they want to your device silently (sounds like a targeted intelligence operation dream to me).

Removing gapps stuff and using microg instead saved a large amount of ram, and more than doubled my battery life.

Its a great way to make old devices suck less.

No implementation of this API yet, but it seems rather trivial to do, and will likely see implementation.

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#35

Post by voltagex_ »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #32
voltagex_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be that these kinds of protocols would be reversed and reimplemented pretty quickly. See Pidgin (GAIM) and countless other instant messengers. I wonder what's happened - I see a lot less reverse engineering going on these days.

https://microg.org/ Google play store APIs and protocols ARE being reverse engineered and re implemented. I run microG with store apps with no issues with everything I have tried.

I meant more broadly: no one's reimplemented AirDrop, and MicroG won't have this new one for quite a while.

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#36

Post by qwfpgj »

ekwogefee wrote: post #25
joosters wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely! It's amazing that two people can have smartphones with wifi, bluetooth and other comms links yet there isn't a standard, platform agnostic way to send a file to another phone. So now we have Nearby Communications for Android and AirDrop for iOS and we still can't send stuff to friends in the same room, without sending the data through a remote third party service. The only standard supported mechanism for…

Shameless plug: Try Feem v4 ( http://www.feem.io ).

Where's the code?

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#37

Post by nevi-me »

dTal wrote: post #21
Animats wrote: post #14

Today we're announcing the availability of this API across all Android devices running Google Play services 11.0 and up. Of course, Google had to lock up peer to peer communication by tying it to their online store. It's also unencrypted and unauthenticated, so you don't want to use this for home control.

Play services is more than just the online store; it's a Faustian bargain of useful services in exchange for giving Google root control over "your" computer. I refuse to Play. I don't really miss the app store, but I'm sore I can't cast media at my friend's house (Chromecast requires Google Play, of course). This is another brick in that wall. This is more unethical and monopolistic than anything Micro$oft ever did,…

Well, tough. As an app developer, I don't bother with users who don't use Play. I prefer worrying about Play versions instead of Android versions. There are a lot of useful features which we would otherwise wait for new OS releases to be able to use.

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#38

Post by Groxx »

nevi-me wrote: post #37
dTal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Play services is more than just the online store; it's a Faustian bargain of useful services in exchange for giving Google root control over "your" computer. I refuse to Play. I don't really miss the app store, but I'm sore I can't cast media at my friend's house (Chromecast requires Google Play, of course). This is another brick in that wall. This is more unethical and monopolistic than anything Micro$oft ever did,…

Well, tough. As an app developer, I don't bother with users who don't use Play. I prefer worrying about Play versions instead of Android versions. There are a lot of useful features which we would otherwise wait for new OS releases to be able to use.

The vast majority of which have no reason to be tied to Play, they're just (ab)using Play to auto-install and auto-update it everywhere. An effective way around carrier update delays, to be sure, but far from the only option.

It could've been an app. Or more than one. And then there could've been competition. Instead it's baked into a monster install that does who-knows-what when it invisibly updates itself.

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#39

Post by tjohns »

rektide wrote: post #5
pat2man wrote: post #2

This is one of those features that really needs cross platform support. If Apple and Google could just work together and let MultipeerConnectivity and Nearby Connections work together maybe developers would actually develop interesting applications for peer to peer.

It's presumably built around WiFi Aware, which is cross platform, but the WiFi "Alliance" (owners) won't tell you what it is or how it works or how you can make use of it. So this is what we get. 100% agreed though. IMO is poison and a major regression from where things stood- barely working wifi p2p- since it doesn't make any interoperability affordances/offerings.

WiFi Aware is an OS-level feature that's being added in the upcoming Android O release. It also requires new hardware support, which means most phones don't support it yet.

Nearby isn't using WiFi Aware. We want it to work on all existing Android devices.

Internally, it's using a mix of WiFi, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth LE & Classic Bluetooth.

Getting proximity-based P2P messaging to work correctly across all devices is complicated. With Nearby Connections, we're trying to provide an abstraction layer that makes it easy.

Re: Nearby Connections 2.0: offline high bandwidth peer to peer device communication

#40

Post by nevi-me »

Groxx wrote: post #38
nevi-me wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, tough. As an app developer, I don't bother with users who don't use Play. I prefer worrying about Play versions instead of Android versions. There are a lot of useful features which we would otherwise wait for new OS releases to be able to use.

The vast majority of which have no reason to be tied to Play, they're just (ab)using Play to auto-install and auto-update it everywhere. An effective way around carrier update delays, to be sure, but far from the only option. It could've been an app. Or more than one. And then there could've been competition. Instead it's baked into a monster install that does who-knows-what when it invisibly updates itself.

That's fair criticism, but "we" are likely to complain that "Google is installing many apps, and I don't know what they're doing". What also happens when I install "Core" v11.0.4, and then "Cast" doesn't install? Or the user stumbles upon "PubSub", and removes updates?

I'm inclined to think this is an all or nothing here, but since we don't have access to the source, I won't know how Google has implemented Play Services.

Can you kindly give an example of which APIs shouldn't be tied to Play though? I've never thought about it.

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