Automatic Wireless Network Organisation

babycakes writes "Interesting article over at the BBC about the future of wireless networks. Researchers at Intel are developing mesh networking technology that automatically organizes the best routes between wireless devices for better bandwidth control, now that the number of wireless devices is set to explode." Neat stuff, but they've yet to implement any sort of security controls. Until they do, it's going to be a real party for wireless eavesdroppers. timothy adds: La Camiseta writes "Wired has an article discussing the extent that some people will go to in order to stay connected. My favorite is their 4-way SMP system that fits into a briefcase."

Comments

4-way SMP?

[Malc]

It has four uniprocessor motherboards. Can it really be called 4-way SMP? 4-way cluster perhaps.

Re:4-way SMP?

[benwb]

SMP requires shared memory so this box doesn't fit the bill.
Best Regards,
Your friendly nitpicking geek.

Security implications?

[tjansen]

I wonder what the security implications are. If every device is able to route, a malicious device could claim to have great connections to other devices in the mesh and then drop packets. Unless there is some way of authentication in the mesh (so that only authenticated devices can participate), it would need some trust/rating system so devices can exchange information about the reliability of other devices...

Re:Security implications?

[TopShelf]

Security seems to be taking a back seat yet again to feature development. For wireless to really explode in the business arena, however, security needs to be built-in from the start. I know at my workplace we have a genuine need to upgrade a wireless network, but we're waiting for better security which is supposed to be available this summer before moving forward.

Re:Security implications?

[Anonymous MadCoe]

And another question would be:
If we get the security part of it right, how about privacy assurances.

Re:Security implications?

[meese]

There have been several research efforts to ensure security and prevent misbehavior in ad hoc networks.

The following papers address many of the issues:

The Ariadne System (for secure routing)

Mitigating routing misbehavior

There are several others that solve similar problems in the research literature.

Re:Security implications?

[grumpygrodyguy]

For wireless to really explode in the business arena, however, security needs to be built-in from the start.

Security is at least as important to the home user.

If P2P filesharing is going to keep from dying on the vine, a very robust IP masking security layer needs to be implemented soon. An IP address is like a license plate. Now that ISP's can be bullied into identifying thier users, there's really nothing we can take for granted. Those of you who take issue with filesharing may not agree, but the next application to be blacklisted may be yours.

IP anonymity is the 21st century equivalent of the proverbial "right to bear arms". It should be protected in order to ensure that we are protected from our government.

Re:Security implications?

[dnoyeb]

I fail to share your concerns. A hardwire network has only access security. Anyone is able to plug into it and your so called security turns instantly into anti-security.

You should be using encryption at the software level, and the data level, not the hardwire level. Software level encryption and data level encryption can be changed on a daily basis. hardware level security is permanent and once broken you can toss your foolish devices in the toilet.

Ok, we should ask ourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

We should ask ourselves, is this a real mesh? having the 'big mama' setting up the network for us, or a real mesh protocol is needed that we can all be servers and clients at the same time to the network, interconnected into a real mesh? Anyway, this is a _great_ step into the future, and let's hope that it works.

Wires are where its at

[Anonymous Coward]

Plug the male end into the female socket. Thats what connectivity is about.

I fear it may be a foreign concept around here, but trust me, WiFi goes against God and Nature.

Re:Wires are where its at

[Chocolate Teapot]

Just think of wireless as foreplay and you'll be fine. Once things get serious, then you can plug into the Ethernet and have a real LAN party.

Until now I never realised that my hub was being gang banged.

Re:Wires are where its at

[Asprin]

Hmm, maybe I should try that -- My wife keeps DOS-ing me. (She keeps muttering something about a lost connection due to packet loss. I don't know exactly what she's talking about because I lose interest shortly after logon.

one word... MESHBOX

[Anonymous Coward]

So you wanta mesh networking? I givea youa the mesha networking...

Meshbox is a lightweight unix distro that does mesh networking over wifi and a gazillion other useful things.. ..fits in 32mb.. ..can also be bought with a an miniITX puter to run on... for just $400.. ..has potential to change the world... or at least the telco industry.. ..is cool.. ...is developed on the right side of the atlantic... :)

Re:one word... MESHBOX

[Spruitje]

And there is even a sourveforge project started .
I have build five meshap units.
The VIA-EPIA V8000 is only 109 euro including the processor and a processorcooler.
Only thing you need next to this board is a 128 mb sdram module, a 32 CF IDE drive and a PCI-wirelesscard.
And of course a case.
The biggest advantage is, that it works and that is doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.

I guess I'm slow...

[mao che minh]

So they intend on doing away with the traditional hub/switch/router layout, in which someone administers the network and decides what amount of bandwidth goes where, and instead embed these functions into the wireless devices themselves? Seems a bit ambitious.

Whats the point of that Mini-ITX cluster?

[stratjakt]

I have to assume those are the 800mhz versions from the CPU fan, but still, these things have very little power from my experience with them. Cool little toys, maybe enough for a low-end workstation or terminal, but I wouldnt think of using one in a server situation.

I actually used one to run my squid-based proxy, and it was outperformed by the P200/MMX I wanted to replace.

Why cluster 4 of those? I'd think a 2 gig Celeron (of course P4 would be preferred) would have more power, faster DDR Ram, be as cheap (if not cheaper).

I cant fathom why one would cluster those little Eden boards, unless they were going for redundancy; a poor mans fault tolerant server.

Anyone?

Re:Whats the point of that Mini-ITX cluster?

[Salamander]

it was outperformed by the P200/MMX I wanted to replace.

That seems like a rather extreme case, and probably more to do with memory than with the actual processor. On most applications, using similar memory/bus technology, the VIA will come in only a little behind an Intel or AMD processor at the same clock rate. On the measure of "MIPS per milliwatt" it will come out way ahead, and that often matters even more. This is not a platform designed for raw performance. It's designed to balance performance with other factors, and does it quite well.

Why cluster 4 of those? I'd think a 2 gig Celeron (of course P4 would be preferred) would have more power, faster DDR Ram, be as cheap (if not cheaper).

Also more power required, more heat, and more space. The nice thing about the Eden boards is that they do well in those three areas, which are more important in this application than raw computes, and yet they run everything that those hotter, more power-hungry processors plugged into bigger motherboards do. There are four of them because this is the sort of application where more slower processors provide benefits that fewer faster ones would not.

My quibble is not that they went with Eden, but that they didn't get the ME6000 which can run fanless. BTW, that board supports DDR SDRAM, so for a memory-bandwidth-bound application such as your squid server it would probably do quite well (assuming that the app isn't poorly coded to use more CPU cycles than necessary).

Disclaimer: I do have a VIA-based system (Shuttle SV24) but that's my only association with them. I also happen to know a couple of the Wifi Caravan folks.

Old Hat

[NimrodMCSE]

The company I work for has been doing this for over 2 years. Seems like Intel is way behind the curve on this one. You can see what we've been doing @ http://www.meshnetworks.com .

Wireless security IS a big issue...

[DarklordJonnyDigital]

...when the modern nerd can hack from low-flying aircraft passing over your house! Ars Technica have done it already - twice, no elss: War Flying, 1 and War Flying, 2

This is just too cool.

Being offline...

[MosesJones]

Is great, having those hours when no-one can contact you. Finding a hotel in a mobile blackspot. Being unable to pick up emails for days knowing that people will just have to cope.

I like being offline, I hate being forced to be online more, with the internet on planes now there goes 8 hours of peace and quiet without an urgent request to do something minor.

The more I'm online the less work that I do, because the more "noise" I receive. Being online all the time means more stupid IM requests, more emails to follow up and more calls asking about something they could have read in a book.

Next year you'll have articles on how far people go to kill their net connection.

Battery usage?

[trikberg]

So what they're saying is that anyone in my general vicinity can use up my battery because that's the best path for the data?

In that case: No, thank you. This is never going to take off.

Wireless Security

[Gyorg_Lavode]

It seems to me that wireless is still in the "can we do it" phase and has not progressed to "can we do it RIGHT".

Mobile SMP

[Chocolate Teapot]

My favorite is their 4-way SMP system that fits into a briefcase.

Sounds cool, but I just know that I would leave this on the train and pick up someone else's case by mistake. What a bitch when you arrive home to find that you have a veritable beowulf of empty sandwich bags, orange peel, an odd sock and half a dozen photos of someone else's kids.

VPN...

[craenor]

If you want wireless security, there it is. Setup your access points (APs) with a DMZ. That's a small space in the networking architecture of the AP that anyone can access.

The only thing you will find in that DMZ is a portal to sign into the VPN server. You have a VPN account, you're in there. You don't have a VPN account? Sorry. Is it perfect? Maybe not, but it's a helluva lot better then relying on WEP.

Craenor

Security in "cooperative" networks

[per unit analyzer]

The problem with security in ad hoc mesh networks built in a cooperative environment* is that you have to worry about who's running the intermediate nodes and whether or not they're doing anything bad with your traffic. Even if you design the wireless link so that non-participants can't sniff your traffic out of the air, the mesh nodes themselves must be secure so that their owners can't snoop on each other. So in the mesh environment, you'll either need to require security to be end-to-end or design a radio that switches packets at a low level and doesn't let traffic passing through to be copied higher into the node OS where it can be snooped. I would opt for the end-to-end security since I can't be sure someone hasn't built a radio that violated a privacy standard.

--zawada

(*) By cooperative environment, I'm talking about mesh networks that are built by many independent entities, with each node carrying the traffic of multiple participants. e.g., your laptop participates in a cloud of laptops that ultimately carries all participants' Internet traffic back to an access point somewhere.

It was asked long ago ...

[jc42]

We should probably note that the a wireless, redundant "mesh" design was part of the ARPA project from the beginning. A lot of old-timers are somewhat disappointed that it's 40 years later, and we still don't have it.

You can see an example in the first diagram at this historical article. Note that the diagram dates to 1964, and the text mentions a "communications network that would survive a major enemy attacked" [sic].

Many of the earliest diagrams of the ARPAnet showed planes, ships, plus all sorts of mobile ground vehicles, with wireless random-looking connections. Again, this was 40 years ago.

Another interesting bit of history: The earliest ARPAnets were mostly on Ethernet. This is a curious term. Why would they use it for a length of coax cable? The reason was that the intention was that it be wireless, with packets being sent "throuh the ether". The wired version was just a temporary kludge until they could get the wireless version working. "Ethernet" was chosen as an unsubtle hint as to what was considered the real packet medium. It was clumsy, limited and kludgey, but the wires were only supposed to be a temporary medium, to be phased out in a few years.

It's been 40 years, and we're still not there ...