Viral Message Passing Framework for Crowd and Sensor Applications.

Bluetooth, WiFi, and NFC are considered to be low power, affordable and available on most mobile handsets. However, these types of wireless mediums are classified as short links since their communication ranges are limited to ~100meters for WiFi and ~10 meters in the case of Bluetooth which seems to stifle the full usefulness of the service. In this paper, we propose a new wireless network concept called ViralNet, solely dependent on the mobile devices in the vicinity using principles of opportunistic networking. ViralNet allow new type of communications beyond the short-range limit which can be used to connect to other phones and sensors distributed in the environment. A message or sensor reading can be turned instantly viral. An authentic user or a monitoring device sends a message to others nearby and they do the same without internet connection. This can open the door to completely new type of applications ranging from emergency evacuation in crowded areas and animal monitoring to citizen reportage, if the authorities want to keep an image from escaping the scene, they must confiscate hundreds or thousands of mobile phones.