WiFi Triangulation

mikegroovy writes "WiFi software tracks you down: 'Positioning technology company Ekahau has released an updated version of its software, which allows devices to be physically tracked when they are connected to an 802.11 WLAN network.' Maybe connections that are made from the street(or outside of a predefined area) could be automatically disconnected... It may spell an end to warchalking."

Comments

Not so new...

[BrunoC]

You should take a look at this article. Students at Dartmouth College have been using / developing wi-fi tracking systems for a while now. A nice way to track down your buddies at the campus.

802.11b Tracking

[Wrexen]

One way to get around a measure like this is to obtain a surface which can reflect EM radiation at 2.4ghz, such as AMQ coated polycarbonates or crystalline-structured metallics. By using a small set of these "mirrors" at strategic locations, you could fool the software into thinking you're actually receiving from inside the CEO's office.

Since most modern triangulation techniques, including Ekahau's, depend on standard mathematical models of radius delta-reduction, it's trivial to set up your reflectors in such a way that the tracking mechanism can't deduce a logical place for your signal to originate from. Hopefully as location-spoofing becomes more commonplace, the government won't enact any laws restricting the use or registration of EM reflective surfaces.

Re:Good God, are you Clueless?

[Zeinfeld]

It took me all of 30 seconds to enable 128 bit WEP and create a key on my new Linksys 802.11b router. Honestly, how hard is that for people to do?

Not hard but unfortunately not secure either. Due to a broken design the WEP mk1 scheme only gives 24 bits of security regardless of whether you have the 128 bit or 40 bit cards.

However this has since been fixed, and the fixed cards will be available fairly soon. In addition the new cards fix the original major inanity of WEP, the single key shared by every card. The newer cards will have built in certificates to suport 802.1x authentication.

While the triangulation scheme might be used for security purposes, it is no replacement for cryptography. In the first place the scheme appears to be working on signal strength rather than the arrival time of the signals. That is easily spoofed. Arrival time of the signals would be hidously expensive to do right (I used to do that type of thing, but not with IP routers and bridges in the way...)

It might be useful to use triangulation to detect when people were entering an leaving cells, but that can probably be done by just choosing the strongest signal.

I can imagine using this type of thing to track down criminal suspects, the sort of thing that the FBI have fun doing. It is not a replacement for cryptography and probably not even as secure as WEP mk1.