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

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?

[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.

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.

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... :)

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?

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.

Re:4-way SMP?

[benwb]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.