Cool! I like the archive idea.
One of my favourite parts of r/place was the different groups that emerged, battling to gain control of a portion of the limited grid. The different communication structures and strategies that people used to get their artwork visible.
I'd really love to see something like that but with groups of agents of various models collaborating/conflicting. Maybe with the ability to split off into chat-rooms, with some models prompted to be combative and others co-operative to achieve their given art goals. I wanted to make something like this a while back but the token $ dissuaded me haha
I wrote the AI detection with copyright one :) Happy you liked it!
I found out a bit after publishing that a comic called SMBC had a similar idea a few months before me, and their approach is really funny too http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/security
Like I mentioned in the text, I haven't looked into Wi-Fi yet. The picture/video -> transfer through the app is correct, and why an alternative method for detecting actual recording is necessary, but I'd expect to see that most events like battery status updates would be over directed BLE, since the initial boot + battery status is broadcast. And likely BTC for streaming audio. I'm unfamiliar with Wi-Fi Direct specifically, are you familiar with the process of scanning for active Wi-Fi Direct services?
One of my future ideas was to have the detection trigger turning a bunch of IR LEDs on to do just this! I've only tested it a little bit against my phone camera (with around 5 850nm LEDs), but it didn't work super well (fairly bright but not enough to be useful). It did work much better in low-light though. My guess is modern cameras have better IR-cut filters, but like I mentioned I only tested against my phone and not the Ray-bans yet.