Fluid Nexus is an application for Android phones and desktop computers enabling exchange of messages without the need for centralized mobile networks. Messages are transferred by short-range networking technologies like bluetooth and through the movement of people from one location to another.

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, networks continue to be defined by their stable topology represented in an image or graph. Peer-to-peer technologies promised new arrangements absent centralized control, but they still rely on stationary devices. Mobile phones remain wedded to conventional network providers.

Instead, the combination of peer-to-peer with mobility enables a new concept of an information transfer infrastructure that relies on fluid, temporary, ad-hoc networks. People and devices are at once implicated as mobile nodes in this network (known in computer science as a sneakernet).

Fluid Nexus bypasses Internet intermediaries’ control over the identification and circulation of messages. This makes Fluid Nexus an important tool for activists. Access to the data stored by Fluid Nexus requires a search warrant for your own devices—or another device running the software. No identifying information regarding the sender is attached to a message, putting the sender in control. And in conjunction with other software such as ObscuraCam identities can be further obfuscated as desired or necessary.

In the event that information needs to reach a broad audience, we’ve added another feature called the Nexus. The Nexus is a space on this site for “public” messages to be automatically uploaded by any Fluid Nexus user. The Nexus includes text, audio, images, and video capabilities. The sender has control whether the message will become public or not.

For more information on Fluid Nexus, see the paper “Transnetworks and the Fluid Nexus Project”, forthcoming in Fall 2011 in the proceedings of dis/connecting/media 2009.