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Gas Plasma Antennas Help Wi-Fi Security
mindless4210 writes "Markland Technologies has developed a new gas plasma antenna technology which could help to secure wireless networks. The technology allows for highly directive and electronically steerable digital data transmission via solid-state semi conductor based plasma generators. A plasma antenna can reposition itself at very high speeds, as well as change it's beamwidth and bandwidth, creating spatial and spectral security features which are not presently available with conventional WiFi antenna technology."
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
In fact it sounds too good to be true.
Oh wait. I see. It's a press release from a startup company. Never mind.
And verify the heisenberg compensators, it could just possibly work. You might need to check out the lateral sensor array though.
Hello, high voltage. It's one thing to put "phased array" antennas on naval vessels, but entirely another to put them in a house. Not to mention the voltage difference needed to generate the plasma.
Fluorescent bulbs use this sort of principle, too - surely our new gas-plasma antennas aren't to be made of glass?
Hrm. Perhaps they are.
The entertainment value when someone walks up and says, "hey whats this thing..." followed by screams as their hand disappears after touching the new flashy glowing thingy.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
My BS alarm just tripped and I can't seem to stop it.
This is a great idea if it works. But if its all directional, how would you have an access point serving many clients? Unless the access point used (an) omnidirectional antenna(s), there would need to be multitudes of these to track each client.
Douglas P. Price
Who the hell are these guys?
:)
Their other products in the emerging technologies section include Acoustic Core - detecting illicit materials using their acoustic signatures, Vapour Trace - a way to search cargo for contraband materials and Crypto.Com - a double cipher keyless transmission system.
Thats a lot of cool science and technology for a relatively unheard of company, not to mention their technologies in the Border Security and Chemical Detection systems.
I had read a while back about the CIA and US Govt investing in startups - I think its quite possible that these guys are probably funded thus
Kinda cool yet spooky.
Picture of a wide-eyed 'generic business person" with big print on the billboard that reads "Got Gas? If not, you're wireless network isn't secure."
The one place where this could have some good security uses is for undetectable transmission, which is probably interesting to the military.
Of course, directional broadcasting has a whole set of real benefits, such as getting more bandwidth by allowing more transmitters in the same region, minimizing interference, minimizing radiation output, etc. But to call this a security feature? I guess the "everything good is a security feature" is the parallel to "everything bad is terrorist" idea which seems popular lately.
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Create a WAP server
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
According to their site, plasma antennas are interesting for short-pulse applications, such as radar, IFF... Wifi is not mentioned, just a vague "high speed data communications" after a wealth of military applications.
So aside from being, literally, vaporware (laugh here, serious point next.), how does this technology compete with phased array systems such as those by Vivato? I understand the value of phased arrays are that they can focus the output into an extremely narrow beam and send it to just the right place. I Am Not A Physicist, but it seems like solid state electronics are a *little* bit simpler than plasma to work with!
And safer.
I just hope it won't interfere with my Vortex Field Generator or detune my Resonance Cascade.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
The "war on terror" is turning into a pork program.
Not rf from plasma, but audio
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If it is steerable, then it needs some idea of the direction to steer to. This could be done in a location-based way (eg. GPS) or by tracking signal strengths etc. But basically it means that to use this you will be giving away some idea of your position. It will be like the finger of God pointing at you: "There's the bloke viewing pron".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just because it's not a solid doesn't make it spooky or virtual...
virtual radio telescopes could be of practically unlimited size, by this arrangement.
Not really, since the plasma has to be kept "hot" and at low pressures in order to prevent it from recombining back into "normal" uncharged matter again. A device capable of maintaining such a large plasma would require enormous amounts of power and maintainence.
Highly directive and electronically steerable digital data transmission via solid-state semi conductor based plasma generators? Is that all? Heck, I've got, like, four or five solid-state semi conductor based plasma generators providing highly directive and electronically steerable digital data transmission in my car. Highly directive and electronically steerable digital data transmission via solid-state semi conductor based plasma generators aren't that big of a deal.
Stupid like a fox!
With the high speed directional capabilities it claims to have, you could set two of these up at a known distance apart and use them to quickly triangulate every wi-fi client within range.
That would be one hell of a security measure, alerting security to the exact location of every wi-fi client not in a known approved area.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
We know how to make WiFi secure: with secure protocols and encryption. When the responsible standards bodies don't screw up badly (as they did with 802.11), it works fine. A somewhat directional antenna may or may not increase security slightly, but not at an interesting cost/performance ratio. If you really want additional security at the physical level, use laser or even quantum communications.
This company has a solution in search of a problem, and they are trying to drum up businesses. Plasma antennas are interesting for 1960's style radio transmissions and stealth, but they have little significance to 21st century wireless communications.
It looks like a rack of florescent lights to me...
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
You can circumvent the use of a Gas Plasma Antenna, and cost by using a simple Parabolic Antenna. It is just as effective with direction reception and broadcasting, which is all a Gas Plasma antenna can do. And being able to alter reception directions quickly does very little for security, possibly a bit of convienience, but I would like to save my money for other things.
An SOS message could be sent by igniting three short farts, followed by three long ones, followed by three short ones.
While the plasma may disappear when the antenna isn't in use, the housing containing the plasma doesn't. Not too stealthy...
Another minor issue -- what's a plasma? Ionized gas, right? How do you ionize gas? By passing current through it. That gives you a large plasma arc. Gee, I wonder if just possibly that arc might be generating RF on its own? Any guesses on DC to light (literally -- gas discharge lamps give off quite characteristic spectra)? That arc is a very wideband RF source.
You're telling me you're going to hook up a sensitive receiver to a gas arc, and it's going to work? Or you're going to hook up a transmitter to a gas arc, and the extra power from the transmitter isn't going to alter the characteristics of the plasma?
Kind of like playing the violin while sitting atop a foghorn...
I remember reading about making a speaker out of a candle or gas jet, I think in an old ham radio magazine from the 1950's. From what I remember, you stick two wires into the flame and drive it with a high voltage modulated with audio.
Actually they have already done this with a speaker. A gas makes a pretty blue flame, and by inserting electrodes into the base of the flame, and modulating it with a voltage, it causes the shape of the flame to change. This emits sound as it moves the air around the plasma jet.
Several designs for these have been written up and have even produced comercially in Europe. U.S. Safety laws have prevented them from being sold in Amercia, however some enterprising scientists have built their own for fun.
If the surface or volume of the plasma ball can conduct, it can be used as a radiator of RF, one that can have its shape dynamically changed by the above technique.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Gas Plasma antennas? The phrase "Gas Plasma" makes me think of a star trek episode where the enterprise accidentally destroys an ecosystem after venting warp plasma into a planets atmosphere :)
:D
Anyway, this would be a cool technology. Someone spying on your WiFi network? Send some gas plasma in his direction and watch the fireworks
The thing that is exciting about this is the field of research that it opens up. Of course, directional comm antennas have been around for quite some time, but building networks out of them is relatively new. Do a literature search on "active topology formation" and you'll see what I mean -- not a whole lot has been done here, and yet this dramatically changes how you architect networks.
The exact issues involved are what spurred DARPA to recently proclaim that it was time to revise the 7-layer OSI model into something that appears more like a mesh. And that really is what will be required -- for example, waiting 10s of seconds for OSPF to figure out whether a link is up or down just will not cut it when you can form links on the order of milliseconds.
Wow, a +5 informative, and no one clicked the link. I'm impressed.
Dangit, I forgot to correct the link in my previous comment, sorry.
Having directional or narrow beam capabilities is of tremendous advantage ( not that this capability does not already exist to some extent, but this looks to be an improvement) :
1. You mentioned the problem of objects in the way, especially reflective ones. For transmission in both cities and non flat terrain, the path of radio signals to the recever frequently travel along paths that include reflections as opposed to straight from the transmitter. This is not changed by the directional signal; the transmitter and receiver will just focus on the best rout. As for people listening in on signals, wireless will never be free from that. If someone is determined to position a receiver to pick up the signal, then it will happen ( Even if the snoop has to park a satellite in a straight line behind the receiver as the US government has been known to do. ) However directional will allow you to cut out a significant portion of the casual snoops. It is far less likely that the small portion of your neighbors with snooping interests and abilities will regularly coincide with where your stray signal is going if you use directional signals.
2. Most users will not care much about 1, however they will care about the added bandwidth this allows. Directional signals allow for concurrent signals to be sent to different locations with less interference. Your wireless will not interfere as much with your neighbor's. At crowded locations, bandwidth will be divided across smaller areas, perhaps allowing the person a few tables or rows over to get full bandwidth at the same time you are if close enough to the wireless router.