Secure Wireless Through Infrared Antennas

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."

Comments

Enh, too little too late

[mfos.org]

This would have been great a while ago, but what I don't understand why its so difficult to have created truly secure wireless networks in the first place. I mean, come on guys, there's tons of public key cryptography stuff out there, I don't see why that wasn't used from zero day.

Granted, I'm not a wireless engineer, I just play one on slashdot, so I could very well be talking out my ass.

Re:Enh, too little too late

[quick_dry_3]

I'm not a wireless engineer either, but I'd imagine that public key crypto has too high an overhead - don't most PKI systems use the public key to encrypt a session key that gets used with 'normal' symmetrical cyphers?

Re:Enh, too little too late

[delta407]

Yes; most symmetric ciphers are faster than pubkey ciphers. Public key encryption is used only in key exchange for most protocols, SSL included.

Then again, if you're going to hook up countless tiny antennas to a big fat DSP, there's no reason you couldn't use public key crypto in realtime. But, symmetric cryptography is easier computationally and just as secure, hence the reason most engineers choose to swap keys and change cryptosystems as soon as possible.

Isn't that weird...

[ealar dlanvuli]

I thought the great advantage of 802.11x was it *wasn't* on the infared spectrum like every wireless proticol prior.

Then again perhaps some people enjoy only having line of sight networking, to each his own.

can't go through walls?

[dirvish]

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this require line of sight? Doesn't that limit the usefullness of a wireless network? I thought one of the benefits of wi-fi was that it went through wall and windows.

Why?

[delta407]

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, smart people a long time ago developed a device called a "network cable". This means no energy leaking through walls, and no extra precautions necessary to block it from exiting through windows. The cables can be laid so that several networks can be co-located in the same physical space.

It's been done, okay? If you're going to carefully aim IR antennas and put up filters on windows, just lay some Cat-5 already. It's cheaper, faster, and more secure.

What's the point of wireless then?

[Corvaith]

What's the point of wireless if you think the ability to be in another room is a disadvantage? If it's so awful, why not just plug the computers in physically like in the olden days?