Android BlueTooth Security

The paper is basically a documentation about the android and it security measure along with how it handles various types of security intrusions on security when using a bluetooth device. The paper itself was very straight forward as it listed various types of useful functions and methods and talked about what they did in particular. The paper was also to a certain degree a trouble shooting guide for people that are not yet familiar with the whole concept of programming in an android phone.

Basically at the end it was clear to say that the amount of security and the features the android had to offer for bluetooth usage was fairly sufficient. It seemed that the only noticeable hole that can possible arise if when the phone is connected to too many other users at the same time when utilizing the phone.

Exploiting Social Interactions in Mobile Systems

This paper talked about if it would be possible to collect data using a mobile device to distinguish certain people as friends while certain people as strangers. It also attempted to model the basic actions and patterns taken by people that have been categorized. Lastly the paper also tested a anti virus system that would utilize the categorization system to monitor potential threats to the mobile device. This was tested by putting in a worm and seeing if the anti virus software was effective in mitigating the spread of the virus among mobile phones.

The paper itself showed that it was possible to collect data to distinguish certain people and friends while others as strangers with a high percentage. The categorization was only kept to two categories due to the fact that it would get too complicated/not enough time. By using the basic pattern acquired the anti virus software was also able to do a great job in strongly mitigating the spread of a worm virus as well

A Value Transfer Solution for Bluetooth Mobile Gaming

With the gaming market growing by a tremendous margin the authors of this paper proposes a new possible method to allow game play by using a bluetooth network where the games would have a pay to play element in them. The authors believe that the mobile market can also tap into the potential of game economies created by games such as EVE or EverQuest. The Pay for play scheme would be a bluetooth network game where revenue stream for game operators can be provided. Firstly a user must sign up for a account on a website and provide payment detail. Then the company would generate a private key to allow a link between the device and a back end net work. The user would then go meet a group of friends and load the game and authenticate them selves to play the game. The game would also discover other devices in range using a blue to radio.

Overall the authors attempt to create a network that can be utilized to facilitate bluetooth gaming by making more practical and feasible in the market in terms of investment and expansion. It describes a possible scenario where a company would be able to tap into the multiplayer gaming industry in the realm of mobile gaming.

WiFi and Bluetooth fight for bandwidth

This paper looks into the conflict that arises for bandwidth for both wifi and bluetooth. Although it is not a huge issue due to the fact that wifi is more predominantly used compared bluetooth at the moment the whole system can be improved upon to accommodate both bandwidth in a more sensible fashion. Currently the bluetooth and wifi share a frequency band that is too close so they tend to interfere. Since the market is push both blue tooth and wifi to be in most handheld instruments it is possible that in the future this pressure would be more apparent. 

Some of the solutions given in this article includes switching between the two radio devices to prevent one from functioning when the other is transmitting (sync them). This would reduce the problem significantly but it is difficult to do so on the hardware level due to the lack of standardization of the products. Another solution that was offered was the usage of a alternating wireless media access. This would create partitions where one segment would be dedicated to bluetooth while the other segment is dedicated to WLAN. This would prevent the disruptions between the two.   

The paper in the overall sense proposal several different methods to prevent the clash from happening and the previous paragraph represented the main solution created by the authors.

RFID playing cards

Christian Floerkemeier and Friedemann Mattern
Institute for Pervasive Computing, Department of Computer Science,
ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

The author in this article created a card game that has been augmented by information technology. The augmentation focuses on automatic bookkeeping (score keeping) as well as offer tips to novice players regarding legal moves and bad moves that can be made. In the system the mobile phones act as user  interfaces. (show the scores as well as give advice at the same time) The phone itself communicate with the computer which keeps track of the game state. This will allow the phones to connect to the game server with their phones at any time during the game.

The game state itself is kept track of by utilizinig a RFID label on each of the playing cards available. A short range RFID reader is utilized to determine what cards each of the players hold. In order to keep track of the cards when they are in a stack form, the tags choosen were tuned to a resonance frequency greater than the operating frequency. Placing them close together reduced the resonance frequency to a value close to the operating frequency.

Playing capture the flag using blue tooth

The paper describes a project created in order to bring back the interactive elements of gaming by cerating a modified version of capture the flag. The game itself incorporated a bluetooth phone in a box to simulate a flag while other invisible items were placed throughout the zone in which the game was played in. The game is played by a total of 2 people in each team where one person would communicate via text to the knight (player in the field) of all of the different items and traps located throughout while the knight would move based on the given information. The field was created virtually as well via computer and the knight's object would be to obtain the physical flag (box) and get it over to the base.

The primary motivation of the game stemmed from the fact that the makers wanted to allow people to interact physically without as much restrictions. In order to achieve this game a server and computer as well as a blue tooth device was utilized for communication and to create the virtual field that would correspond with the real world.

Can mobile gaming be improved

With the mobile gaming market so invested in the existing market the paper goes over various possible methods that can be utilized in order to improve upon the existing system. This consideration was based on the following questions. What is the user preference for mobile games? What net work structure is required? How can this structure be optimised? And does this senerio differ from the pc? The paper itself focused on the usage of a Content Addressable network (aka CAN network).

The CAN network is a network of information that is stored in a hash table. The keys for the table are mapping to the coordinates in the virtual space. This means that each key carries a part of the virtual space. This whole system was based on the Mobile Ad hoc NETworks. Finally the coordinates in the n dimensional virtual space are redirecting to the values in hash table. Based on the results the CAN netowrk can do a much better job at sending packets for game related material. (although there is a initial over head up to a 100 nodes) This was done by making a comparison to regular broadcasting methodology for multiplayer mobile gaming