
Autonomous smartphone apps: self-compilation, mutation, and viral spreading - ingve
http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.00444
======
woah
I'm not that impressed by this.

They talk a lot about "mesh networks" in the "Related Works" section in the
introduction. Their work is in fact not related to any kind of mesh network.
The words "mesh network" are a very loose collection of concepts, and are used
to describe certain classes of IP routing protocols, large volunteer-run ISPs
like guifi.net and Freifunk, and p2p messaging apps like Firechat. The authors
do not seem to understand the distinction, and their analysis of this "related
work" does not rise above the level of "wow, cool decentralized stuff".

On to the actual work being presented, it looks to me like the researchers
just put an Android compiler into an Android app (Maybe this is a big
accomplishment? I don't know much about Android development). In any case, it
has an interface to select a few superficial options for the app, like the
icon, and then it will compile a new copy.

Using NFC, the compiled app can be transferred to another phone. This has
nothing to do with mesh networks in any sense of the word. They also present
an analysis of compile times on various phones, which top out at 330 seconds.
Useful information?

In any case, it's cool that they put a compiler in an app, but this paper
feels like a massive edifice of fluff built up around a cool weekend hack. I
hope that they can pass their class or get their certificate or degree or
whatever they're gunning for here.

~~~
contingencies
I agree with your analysis. I truly hope that people motivated to make a
difference by enabling distributed resistance to censorship of centralized
communications infrastructure can see the wisdom in investing time to develop
the wifi mesh capability for FirefoxOS or Android. Once a major platform has
this functionality, it will spread. I wrote a fairly long paper about ideas in
this space over here:
[https://bug945047.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=840...](https://bug945047.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8407268)

~~~
voltagex_
I haven't read your paper yet but have you looked at Serval?

~~~
synctext
Paper author here... In our main project we implemented an onion routing stack
compliant with the Tor protocol specification. Key issue is we avoid using any
central server, like directory servers. It uses UDP (not TCP like Tor itself),
runs on Android, fully functional, but not mature yet. See our overview talk,
[http://wan.poly.edu/p2p2015/keynote.html](http://wan.poly.edu/p2p2015/keynote.html)

> The authors do not seem to understand the distinction

We are very much aware of the difference between ad-hoc and NFC transfers.
Note that for dissent and anti-government protest you most likely need
something else: Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN), see these IETF
pages, [http://ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/dtn-
charter](http://ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/dtn-charter)

> I don't know much about Android development

This is quite non-trivial.

> I haven't read your paper yet but have you looked at Serval?

Yes, we are in contact with them. We invited the Serval people to one of the
IETF events I organised some time ago. Sadly they are a bit underfunded.
[http://www.internetsociety.org/articles/moving-toward-
censor...](http://www.internetsociety.org/articles/moving-toward-censorship-
free-internet)

~~~
woah
Sorry for the harshness of my tone. There's unfortunately a lot of people
draping their tech in the mantle of "mesh" without actually introducing any
innovation. I had taken this as such a project mostly because I saw no mention
of routing protocols. I will take a look at your main work.

------
privong
The github repo[0] for this was posted on HN a few days ago and garnered a bit
of discussion[1].

[0] [https://github.com/Tribler/self-compile-
Android](https://github.com/Tribler/self-compile-Android)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10529021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10529021)

~~~
conceit
wrong link to the discussion

~~~
synctext
correct prior news.ycombinator link:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517936)

------
betandr
We do seem to be building in a lot of risk to our infrastructure at the moment
from network connections to software delivery and introducing many single
points of failure. It's good for a company that wants to control how you
connect to the Internet, what you consume and to generate revenue from that
but it's not great in any situation where those single points of
failure...fail. We do need to consider alternative approaches which include
peer delivery and mesh networking. We have the technology to do that now.

------
alhenaworks
Congrats on inventing skynet.

~~~
hbogert
Self compiling is not self-sentient.

