org.quietmodem.Quiet

About 7kbps, nearly inaudible to adults, across air-gapped devices. We're doomed, part 6795402. -- Charlie Stross

org.quietmodem.Quiet allows you to pass data through the speakers on your Android device. This library can operate either as a raw frame layer or as a UDP/TCP stack.

This package contains prebuilt library files for libquiet and quiet-lwip as well as their dependencies. On top of that, it adds Java bindings which closely mimic the familiar interfaces from the java.net.* package.

This package is provided under the 3-clause BSD license. The licenses of its dependencies are also included and are licensed under a mix of BSD and MIT.

Quiet comes with support for armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86, and x86_64. It requires Android API 14 for 32-bit mode and API 21 for 64-bit mode. It requires only the RECORD_AUDIO permission.

For testing purposes, Genymotion is highly recommended over the default emulator. Genymotion provides access to the microphone while the default Android Studio one does not and will throw an exception when Quiet attempts to use the microphone.

Why sound? Isn't that outdated?

If you are old enough, you may remember using dial-up modems to connect to the internet. In a sense, this package brings that back. While it's true that this is somewhat of a retro approach, consider the advantages of using sound.

Highly cross-platform. Any device with speakers and a microphone and sufficient computational power can use this medium to communicate.
No pairing. Unlike Bluetooth, sound can be used instantly without the need to pair devices. This reduces the friction and improves the user experience.
Embeddable content. Similar to a QR code, short packets of data can be encoded into streaming or recorded audio and can then be later decoded by this package.

What does it sound like?

The answer to this depends on which operating mode you choose. Quiet provides audible and near-ultrasonic modes. Audible modes sound something like a puff of air. The near-ultrasonic modes run at 17+kHz and are virtually inaudible to adults. Either mode can operate at relatively low volumes as long as there isn't too much background noise.

But don't take my word for it, try it out for yourself.

How fast does it go?

Quiet's provided audible mode transfers at approximately 7kbps. In cases where two devices are connected over a cable (via 3.5mm jack) it can run in cable mode, which transfers at approximately 64kbps.

Other Platforms

Desktop/Laptop: libquiet and quiet-lwip

Javascript: quiet-js (UDP/TCP coming soon)

iOS: QuietModemKit

Apps that use org.quietmodem.Quiet

Quiet Share - A proof of concept app that allows text and links to be shared from one device to another.

Usage

Quiet can be used either as a raw frame layer or in UDP/TCP mode. For the latter, it provides the lwIP TCP stack which operates entirely independently from the stack provided by Android.

Make sure to have the Android NDK installed and set the location of it at ndk.dir in local.properties. This is necessary to build the JNI wrapper included in this project.

Frame Mode

Assuming we're working from MainActivity.java, we start with

import java.io.IOException;
import org.quietmodem.Quiet.*;

FrameReceiverConfig receiverConfig = null;
FrameTransmitterConfig transmitterConfig = null;

try {
    transmitterConfig = new FrameTransmitterConfig(
            this,
            "audible-7k-channel-0");
    receiverConfig = new FrameReceiverConfig(
            this,
            "audible-7k-channel-0");
} catch (IOException e) {
    // could not build configs
}

FrameReceiver receiver = null;
FrameTransmitter transmitter = null;

try {
    receiver = new FrameReceiver(receiverConfig);
    transmitter = new FrameTransmitter(transmitterConfig);
} catch (ModemException e) {
    // could not set up receiver/transmitter
}

This sets up our transmitter and receiver using the packaged configuration. We choose the audible mode here. Now we can transmit.

On one side we might run

// set receiver to block until a frame is received
// by default receivers are nonblocking
receiver.setBlocking(0, 0);

byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
long recvLen = 0;
try {
    recvLen = receiver.receive(buf);
} catch (IOException e) {
    // read timed out
}

And on the other side

String payload = "Hello, World!";
try {
    transmitter.send(payload.getBytes());
} catch (IOException e) {
    // our message might be too long or the transmit queue full
}

That's enough to send our frame across. Frame mode is useful when we want to send small bits of data that can easily fit in one frame and do not need a concept of a sender or receiver, that is, frames are a broadcast medium.

UDP/TCP Mode

If we want to do interactions between two devices, or if we'd like retransmits and automatic data segmentation, then TCP is the way to go.

First we build a new NetworkInterface.

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.SocketException;
import org.quietmodem.Quiet.*;

FrameReceiverConfig receiverConfig = null;
FrameTransmitterConfig transmitterConfig = null;

try {
    transmitterConfig = new FrameTransmitterConfig(
            this,
            "audible-7k-channel-0");
    receiverConfig = new FrameReceiverConfig(
            this,
            "audible-7k-channel-0");
} catch (IOException e) {
    // could not build configs
}

NetworkInterfaceConfig conf = new NetworkInterfaceConfig(
            receiverConfig,
            transmitterConfig);

NetworkInterface intf = null;
try {
    intf = new NetworkInterface(conf);
} catch (ModemException e) {
    // network interface failure
}

This example omits an IP address and netmask from NetworkInterfaceConfig() which tells Quiet to create an Auto IP. This will automatically assign our interface an address, although it does take several seconds to probe and settle on an address once we instantiate the interface.

If we're using Quiet in an ad-hoc manner, we'll need to discover any peers nearby. We can do this by using a broadcast UDP packet.

On each side we might run something like this.

// org.quietmodem.Quiet.DatagramSocket
DatagramSocket s = null;
try {
    // bind to wildcard:3333 -- note that this is
    // using org.quietmodem.Quiet.InetSocketAddress
    // not java.net.InetSocketAddress
    sSend = new DatagramSocket(new InetSocketAddress("0.0.0.0", 3333));
    // listen on 3334
    sRecv = new DatagramSocket(new InetSocketAddress("0.0.0.0", 3334));

    // don't block for more than 10 seconds
    sRecv.setSoTimeout(10000);

    // get broadcast permission
    sSend.setBroadcast(true);
} catch (SocketException e) {
    // exception creating DatagramSocket
}

byte[] send = "MARCO".getBytes();
byte[] recv = new byte[1024];
InetSocketAddress peer = null;
while (true) {
    // get ready to do a broadcast to port 3334
    // again, this is org.quietmodem.Quiet.DatagramPacket
    DatagramPacket p = new DatagramPacket(send, send.length,
                    new InetSocketAddress("169.254.255.255", 3334));
    try {
        sSend.send(p);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // exception sending on DatagramSocket
    }

    DatagramPacket pRecv = new DatagramPacket(recv, recv.length);
    boolean received = false;
    try {
        sRecv.receive(pRecv);

        received = true;
        peer = pRecv.getSocketAddress();

        // respond so that the other peer knows we're here
        p.setData("POLO".getBytes());
        p.setSocketAddress(peer);
        sSend.send(p);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // exception receiving on DatagramSocket
    }

    if (received) {
        break;
    }

    // our 10-second read timeout acts as a sleep
    // continue broadcasting until we get a bite
}

// now use the peer's address somehow....
// continue sending UDP or establish a TCP connection
// on another port

// when finished, close sSend, sRecv and intf

quiet/org.quietmodem.Quiet

quiet

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