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OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

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Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#191

Post by duskwuff »

dsl wrote: post #184
liability wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Modern MacOS[...] discourage you from disabiling Wi-Fi/Bluetooth anyway. How do you figure? I've never seen any discouragement from it.

If you use the controls that slide down from the top of the screen (I'm at a loss as to what Apple calls it) and "disable" Wifi it simply disconnects from the associated AP and won't reassociate. It will turn itself back on at 7 AM tomorrow morning. "Disabling" Bluetooth is similar, it will disconnect from paired devices, but BTLE is still available. You have to use airplane mode, or go in to the Settings app to full…

The behavior you're describing is only present on iOS, not on macOS.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#192

Post by kelnos »

rlpb wrote: post #131
bennofs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that most clients probably don't configure the ad-hoc network for you? Or do they?

I thought we were talking about enabling technologies, rather than specific clients, and that it's a given that a suitable and widely deployed client doesn't currently exist. I consider automatic configuration of an ad-hoc network to be a relatively trivial client implementation detail :)

> I consider automatic configuration of an ad-hoc network to be a relatively trivial client implementation detail

Your statement may be tongue-in-cheek, but this sort of attitude is why we don't have this deployed on devices en-masse. Non-technical users want something that just works with one tap, not something that requires them to manually set up an ad-hoc WiFi network every time they want to use it.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#193

Post by MacroChip »

big_chungus wrote: post #179
cyphar wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you taken a look at magic-wormhole[1]? I've started using it recently and it's insanely easy to use. It does have a centralised signalling server for key exchange between peers, but it does attempt to do peer-to-peer data transfer (only falling back to a TURN-style relay if both clients are behind NATs and aren't on the same local network). An explanation of the cryptography and design was given at PyCon 2016[2]…

Magic wormhole is good, and I've used it before, but it's never as fast as it could be. Something like piping to netcat is always faster. I know it's possible (albeit with a lot of work) to do this over HTTP, but google drive is probably the only site that can mostly saturate a connection. Can any one link more info on how exactly they achieve this? The only trick I know of is a better TCP congestion control algorith…

I did not know magic wormhole existed. I made a simple nodejs implementation of a very similar app. It used WebRTC so maybe it could be faster. Let me know if you want to try it out!

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#194

Post by shireboy »

Let's talk for a minute about why all the Apple things aren't open. There is zero about iMessage or AirDrop that should be proprietary. The only reason I know of is vendor lock-in, and that stinks for users. It would be way more helpful to way more people if these features were ubiquitous, open, and standards-based like SMTP or IMAP is for email. We wouldn't except an Apple-only iMail, why do we accept iChat and iPhotoShare?

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#195

Post by big_chungus »

neilalexander wrote: post #190
big_chungus wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you could throw together a quick blog post on this? Or maybe a quick gist; doesn't have to be polished.

Sure thing - I threw this together over the last hour or so: https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/2019/08/19/awdl.html

Thanks, that was an educational read. Much appreciated.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#196

Post by chipotle_coyote »

HNcantBtrustd wrote: post #188
oarsinsync wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about your apple peer developers, who have made a deliberate and conscious choice to use Apple devices in their day to day life, and stable open source solutions in production / deployment environments? Some of us used to live in the FOSS garden, and decided to trade extra money in exchange for receiving a lot of time back and a shiny finish. Everyones values vary.

I don't think your premise that you are saving time is correct. Apple advertises similar to Luxury car buyers to make you believe you are getting a high quality product. But it's going to be really hard to prove things are quicker.

I know you didn't explicitly say "you only use Apple products because you've been suckered in by advertising," but it's hard not to take it as the subtext, and it's something that's long rubbed me the wrong way.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#197

Post by arghwhat »

gruez wrote: post #90
arghwhat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not using AirDrop to bypass the GFW for themselves, they are using it to spread information to citizens that are otherwise normally subject to GFW and therefore only have government-approved or government-generated information available to them. Mainland news put HK protesters as violent, rebellious youngsters that are causing trouble and injury to everyone else by having greedy demands of something better t…

That’s a very loose definition of the word “evade” and the headline is definitely misleading. The average person was probably expecting to find some sort of censorship evasion while current being censored.

Censorship evasion is doable within minutes for most, which is well known for those interested in it.

However, many do not feel compelled to evade it, and have no idea of what happens "on the outside".

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#198

Post by lawnchair_larry »

shireboy wrote: post #194

Let's talk for a minute about why all the Apple things aren't open. There is zero about iMessage or AirDrop that should be proprietary. The only reason I know of is vendor lock-in, and that stinks for users. It would be way more helpful to way more people if these features were ubiquitous, open, and standards-based like SMTP or IMAP is for email. We wouldn't except an Apple-only iMail, why do we accept iChat and iPho…

I agree that they should be open, but there are some advantages to the current model besides vendor lock-in.

Requiring a device certificate to communicate puts a pretty high bar on the integrity of the system. Being closed also allows unrestricted innovation at a faster pace.

It’s very difficult to add features once an open standard is out. Just look at the evolution of the major web browsers for example.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#199

Post by big_chungus »

MacroChip wrote: post #193
big_chungus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic wormhole is good, and I've used it before, but it's never as fast as it could be. Something like piping to netcat is always faster. I know it's possible (albeit with a lot of work) to do this over HTTP, but google drive is probably the only site that can mostly saturate a connection. Can any one link more info on how exactly they achieve this? The only trick I know of is a better TCP congestion control algorith…

I did not know magic wormhole existed. I made a simple nodejs implementation of a very similar app. It used WebRTC so maybe it could be faster. Let me know if you want to try it out!

I'd love to give it a spin; do you have a repo link? Also out of curiosity, how does it compare in terms of crypto?

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#200

Post by OrgNet »

rlpb wrote: post #125
oarsinsync wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requires an underlying network infrastructure to communicate over. Not quite the same as disparate peer to peer wireless mesh.

It works with ad-hoc wifi with no other infrastructure requirement or Internet connection, just the same as AirDrop. What more do you require to meet your definition of "disparate peer to peer wireless mesh"?

But Google doesn't want to allow wi-fi ad-hoc networking: https://web.archive.org/web/20160315070543/https://code.goog...
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