p2pnet - rss feed: WiPeer: software-only p2p Wi-Fi
p2pnet.net news:- A team from the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, has come up with a free software-only Wi-Fi application which could have profound and tremendously far reaching effects on the way data of all kind move around, peer-to-peer.
It’s called WiPeer and bottom line, it’s a p2p application offering “freedom to share, no strings attached,” promise its creators.
That means file sharing among computers, multi-player games, chats, and collaboration over both Wi-Fi and home/office networks. And, no adware, no spyware, no malware, WiPeer promises.
WiPeer was developed to allow communication, “in a peer-to-peer manner, between mobile computers, when either there is no access point, or when the access point costs money, or when for privacy reasons, the users do not wish to utilise the access point,” says the FAQ.
Behind it are computer science PhD students Vadim Drabkin, Gabi Kliot and Alon Kama, with a BSc from Berkeley and an MSc from the Technion.
They’re led by associate professor of computer science Dr Roy Friedman who spent three years as a researcher at Cornell University, returning to the Technion as a faculty member.
“During 2003 I also spent a sabbatical year at INRIA/IRISA in Rennes, France,” he told p2pnet. “All of us have some industrial experience in the Israeli hi-tech industry. Both Alon Kama and Vadim Drabkin have also worked in California for a short while.”
Below is a p2pnet Q&A with Friedman.
p2pnet: What led you to create WiPeer?
Friedman: The reasons for making WiPeer are two-fold: My research group is working on server-less computing and ad-hoc networks for several years now. Yet, until now, there were no widely used consumer applications for this technology. Also, establishing ad-hoc networks and sharing files on Windows is possible, but it is so difficult that even we avoid doing this and when we need to transfer a presentation in a conference from one to another, or when I visit friends and wish to transfer family photos from my laptop to theirs, we always end us using a USB memory stick, which is annoying. Not to mention that it is not possible to chat or play games whenever there is no access point (e.g., on airplanes, in many conference centers and hotels in Europe, etc.). So, we decided to fix these problems by implementing WiPeer. At the same time, we decided that we are going to build a product that would be simple to use and have a nice GUI, since one of our goals was to bring the technology to as many people as possible.
p2pnet: How long before it’ll be good for Linux and Apple, and which will come first?
Friedman: As we work in an academic environment, we proceed in an opportunistic manner, e.g., according to people’s interests, if we make a sudden breakthrough in a certain direction, or if we suddenly decide that a certain feature is the most important. As such, we cannot commit to an exact date, but at this point it seems that a Linux version will probably be ready before Apple.
p2pnet: Is it open source? If not, why not, since you’re offering it for free?
Friedman: Right now, it is not open source, but we intend to keep it free. Going open source is an option we are considering.
p2pnet: Will there eventually be a price tag and if so, how much?
Friedman: Our current plans are to keep WiPeer free. Our goal is to make the technology available to as many people as possible.
p2pnet: Will it eventually carry advertising, or does it do so now?
Friedman: There’s no advertising now. WiPeer is currently developed inside the university (the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology).
p2pnet: Why does file searching require Google’s desktop search? A lot of people don’t trust it. Why should they now trust it with your app?
Friedman: We do not require people to activate Google’s desktop search. Only if they want to utilize the search capability of WiPeer, then they need to also activate GDS. All other features, including file sharing, chatting, games, etc, work in any case. As for search, the main privacy worry about GDS is that the typical way GDS enables searching across computers is by exposing the local index to Google. With WiPeer, it is possible to search across computers WITHOUT exposing the local index, which solves the privacy issue. The search is performed locally on each computer, and then the results are filtered, and only files that were explicitly exposed through the file sharing mechanism are displayed on the searcher’s machine.
p2pnet: Could inter-computer transmissions be intercepted by a third party?
Friedman: When establishing an ad-hoc network, it is possible to set a secure network (in the “Connect Options” window). In this case, all the communication is encrypted.
p2pnet: Will it become useable with phones and other hand-helds?
Friedman: This is definitely the plan. As for the timing, this is the same as with Linux and Apple.
p2pnet: “WiPeer might not work properly with versions of ThinkVantage Access Connections older than 4.23.” That’s me. When will this be fixed?
Friedman: Actually, this is already fixed and we are now testing it. Old versions of access connections were messing with the standard networking mechanism, so we had to find a workaround for it. We plan to release the fix next week.
p2pnet: “However, notice the user license agreement during the installation process, which you must accept.” What does this say?
Friedman: The user license is a typical free software license. It basically says things like “This is a beta product and may have bugs”, “it is provided as is without any warranties of any kind”, acknowledging the copyright owners, and similar. Nothing special. We just want to verify that people understand that as this is a free product, we cannot give them any warranties, or promise to fix problems quickly.
p2pnet: How’s it doing”
Friedman: Since WiPeer was released, only about 10 minor bugs were reported (and we have more than 10,000 downloads by now). We typically provide a fix within a few days (sometimes, on the same day).
Definitely stay tuned and meanwhile, click here to download WiPeer.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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