Current communication approaches assume network associations as a prerequisite to both content discovery and access. This network-centric paradigm incurs substantial communication and time overhead, as devices build knowledge of content availability only after blindly associating to a network. In pervasive mobile networking, this prerequisite and associated overhead prevents devices to efficiently identify desired communication partners, i.e., devices running an application or providing content

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... of interest, within the broad mass of devices in communication range as found in everyday scenarios. SO-Fi, instead, realizes content-centric wireless networking by enabling pervasive content discovery before establishing a network infrastructure. SO-Fi builds on the IEEE 802.11 wireless broadcast medium to instantly achieve a discovery scope covering all devices in communication range. Realizing content discovery outside of secure network associations, SO-Fi supports usecase-specific communication security, i.e., confidentiality, WPA2 network security, DoS robustness, and user authentication. We show SO-Fi's feasibility and performance through real-world experimentation. Indeed, SO-Fi makes instant, content-centric wireless networking readily accessible to application designers.