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I'm contemplating the development of an Android app that detects all or most nearby mobile devices (iPhone, Android, etc) in the immediate neighborhood that are turned on. I don't need to interact with these devices, just detect them, and a requirement is that the detected devices can't need to have any special / unusual apps installed on them. The app only needs to work for typical U.S. devices and networks.

I've thought about a few ways to do this (somehow detecting bluetooth, wifi, or cellular transmissions / identifiers), but I'm looking for specific implementation methods for a way to detect a relatively large proportion of nearby devices. I'm not sure which of these methods is possible / feasible or how to put them into practice...

Perhaps using Bluetooth: Is there a way using the Android SDK to detect non-discoverable Bluetooth devices (not in discoverable mode)? The Nokia Developer site seems to suggest this is possible using Service Discovery Protocol (SDP), but I'm not sure if this is possible more generally in Android. 

Perhaps using cell tower mast switching simulation? Ok, this is almost certainly beyond the reach of Android, but this article suggests that there may be a way to "mimic cell mast switching process to trigger quiescent phones into transmitting. Phones respond with their ID and authentication signals...".

Victor Van Hee
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I think you should see this, it is a paper, and you cannot view it for free, but in the summary, it clearly states:

Concerns about Bluetooth device security have led the specification of the “non-discoverable” mode, which prevents devices from being listed during a Bluetooth device search process. However, a nondiscoverable Bluetooth device is visible to devices that know its address or can discover its address. This paper discusses the detection of non-discoverable Bluetooth devices using an enhanced brute force search attack. Our results indicate that the average time to attack a non-discoverable Bluetooth device using multiple search devices and condensed packet timing can be reduced to well under 24 hours.

But for an android application, you need the detection time to be well under a few seconds instead of less than 24 hours, so a practical solution may not yet be available.

SpeedBirdNine
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  • Thanks! Hopefully there's another way. – Victor Van Hee May 15 '12 at 15:35
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    It should also be noted that (in my limited experience) the Bluetooth API exposed by Android is quite limited so you would not be able to implement any advanced searching techniques. And I've read that the NDK doesn't improve the situation. – Tom May 15 '12 at 18:11
  • Found another great article on finding 'non-discoverable' Bluetooth devices: http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/bluetooth-security-review-part-1?device=desktop It takes a long time to find them... – Victor Van Hee May 16 '12 at 15:13
  • Finding time is the issue, which makes it impractical, not impossible. And i really really appreciate that you are sharing your research and effort with everyone, maybe we all can learn something this way! – SpeedBirdNine May 16 '12 at 15:47