Decentralized search and retrieval for mobile networks using SMS

This paper describes the iTrust over SMS decentralized search and retrieval system for mobile networks. Any mobile device in the iTrust network can communicate with any other mobile device in the iTrust network to distribute, search for, and retrieve information. Third-party developers can use the iTrust over SMS API on the Android platform to add this search and retrieval functionality to existing applications quickly and easily. Developers of applications for other mobile device platforms can use the iTrust over SMS protocol to create compatible applications that can communicate using iTrust over SMS. In addition to the iTrust over SMS components and protocol, this paper presents a performance evaluation of the iTrust over SMS system, which shows that the probability of information retrieval is high, even if some of the mobile devices are not available. It also shows that the average search latency is consistently less if all of the participating nodes use the same mobile service provider, and is consistently more if the nodes use different mobile service providers.