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Pentagon and Wi-Fi Deal Reached
byteCoder writes "CNet reports that the US Military and the Wi-Fi manufacturers have struck an agreement on reducing the interference on military radars by Wi-Fi equipment. Basically, future wireless equipment will detect the presence of military radar and not transmit over the top of it. Additionally, as part of the compromise, defense officials will endorse the doubling of the number of allowed wireless frequencies--thus opening more spectrum to wireless users (as long as the FCC and Congress agree)."
Will WiFi equipment be able to tell the difference between military radar, police department radar, and other forms of non-WiFi radiation in the relevant frequency ranges? Will WiFi stop working if I wardrive near a police car? Will it stop working if a police car drives by my house?
Does this "agreement" allow anyone who wants to suppress the use of WiFi to turn on a device that simulates 'military radar"?
Just wondering.
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If it isn't true, don't say it. If it isn't helpful, don't say it. If it's true and helpful, wait for the right time.
A chapter in Lawrence Lessig's latest book, The Future of Ideas, covers the topic of spectrum as a controlled commons. Many feel with modern technology it should be de-regulated and simply sold to any of the highest bidders. Interference with military transmissions has been one key arguing point. His book discusses it well and raises the argument for easing government control of the spectrum commons. I highly recommend the book for anyone interesting in the ideas of the internet as a commons and how it should or should not be controlled.
Developers: We can use your help.
If people can easily modifiy consumer equipment to detect these radar signature, than no foreign nation is going to have trouble building someing that does exactly the same thing. In fact most nations already do build devices like this, especially on fighter planes. Most of them are much more sophisticated, featuring much better sensitivity than consumer equipment along with direction finding ability (there are even missiles that seek on RADAR emissions).
Personally, I'm estatic over the prospect of expanding the total number of completely independent channels from three to five or six.
I read the internet for the articles.
With detectors comes jammers
Similarly, just by mimicking the signal of the military radar you could launch a Denial of Service attack against anyone trying to use Wi-Fi.
It would seem this compromise results in a serious trade-off of National security versus the security of the users' own systems. It could end up being a nasty tool for industrial sabotage if you could shut down networking at competitor's facility from a van parked outside. As a result, it could limit the acceptance of Wi-Fi as a replaced for wired LANs - and keep it as a mobile only technology.
(I know a lot of supposition went into that, but heck, I'm only posting to SlashDot).
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Which electronic magazine (or Phrack ?) will be the first to publish "Build your own WiFi scrambler/silencer for under 20 bucks" article.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc