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Secure Wireless Through Infrared Antennas

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the wires-in-the-sky dept.

oogamrm writes "Everyone knows the main problem with Wi-Fi: Security. It's relatively easy for intruders to sniff packets out of the air and even connect to the wireless net. While most wireless companies have responded by trying to beef up the encryption, the University of Warwick's engineering department has developed an optical antenna that operates in the infrared band. This means almost no energy leaking through walls, and simple filters to block it from exiting through windows. The antennas can be so well tuned that several networks can be co-located in the same physical space. The whole story is available at news.com.com."

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. This is called 802.11, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The original 802.11 specification (note I didn't put a "b" after the 11) had 3 physical transport mechanisms. There were 2 PHY's in the 2.4 GHz range. One used DSSS (aka Direct sequence spread spectrum... this is what "b" uses as well). The other was FHSS (aka Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum). The third PHY was infrared. It was designed so you put up little IR lights on top of your cube and the IR would bounce off the cieling in your office to other IR receivers.

    Yep. It's been around for YEARS but no one used it. Hell, vendors had enough interoperability issues with FH v DS, the thought of using IR was just right out.

    Using it for security sake now seems a bit silly. As pointed out before, IR requires basically LoS. If you're going to be in an office building and using special filters on your windows, then just use wires. They're about 100x faster anyway. TKIP/802.1x are going to go a LONG way to solving wireless security problems within the next 2 years. Lets not take 2 steps backwards and use IR as a PHY.

  2. Networking over IR is old... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    I remember back in 1992 the University of Michigan's College of Engineering had a couple wireless computer labs (both for classroom use) set up for testing. One used Motorola's Altair 18GHz radio product, another an infrared product.

    In fact, here's a Network Magazine article from almost 10 years ago exactly on the topic:

    http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20000724 S0062

    I remember the Altair presenting an interesting problem because its data packets were slightly smaller than AppleTalk packets; the AppleTalk packets had to be split up and performance was severely degraded.

  3. Greenhouse experiements... by rediguana · · Score: 3, Informative

    "You make the network more secure because infrared energy is contained within a room and doesn't leak out through the walls and windows. You can equip the windows to reflect infrared energy," said Green.

    You could have some serious fun with companies depending on the configuration of the reflective surface. If boths sides are IR reflective you lose solar heating benefits but gain security. If only the inside is IR reflective to keep the signal trapped, whilst IR is allowed in from the outside, then a fun attack would be some IR beams from afar aimed at the windows to heat up the room and fry the marketdroids and PHB's!!