House Paint Foils Wardrivers

Ant writes "Security-minded U.S. decorators' supply outfit, Force Field Wireless, claims to have developed a do-it-yourself solution to the international menace of marauding geek wardrivers: DefendAir paint 'laced with copper and aluminum fibers that form an electromagnetic shield, blocking most radio waves and protecting wireless networks.' According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's report, one coat of the water-based paint 'shields Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth networks operating at frequencies from 100 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz", while two or three applications are 'good for networks operating at up to five gigahertz.' However, there are downsides to this." Since it's a water-based paint, exterior use is only recommended for people who want more copper and aluminum in the soil surrounding their house.

Comments

What about cell phones

[drgonzo59]

Would you have to climb up the chimney to call your friends?

Re:What about cell phones

[Sancho]

Does your phone operate at frequencies from 100 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz" ?

Re:What about cell phones

[Scoria]

Oddly enough, I can envision this product appearing in schools. It would suppress the "distraction" of text messaging.

Re:What about cell phones

[rsidd]

I object to the on-call people being in movie theatres. Go see the frickin' movie on the night when you're NOT on-call.

I like the way some people assume doctors are not allowed to have a life. It's ok to call the doctor whenever you like, day or night, but it's not ok for the doctor to go out and watch a movie? The doctors I know leave their phone on vibrate, sit at the back of the theatre, go out to answer a call (more often it's an SMS which they can answer sitting where they are). Exactly what's wrong with that?

Re:What about cell phones

[stuartkahler]

I object to the on-call people being in movie theatres. Go see the frickin' movie on the night when you're NOT on-call.
Some doctors are pretty much on call 24/365. If you're the only [FOO]ologist practicing within 200 miles, you take calls whenever someone has a question. I'm not talking about small towns in the middle of nowhere either. There are lots of subspecialties that only have one practicing doctor serving a population base of millions.
Not that they're the problem. It's the teenagers who thing they're some kind of socialite and can't wait an hour to find out who dumped or hooked up with who. Or even worse, the idiots who think that having a cell phone makes them part of the elite, and they spend every waking moment showing it off.
Theaters who really care would post notice that they kick out people with ringing cell phones. No refund. Then follow through.

Re:What about cell phones

[kaustik]

Some of use are on call 24-7. For example, I carry a Blackberry where I get messages related to things like dropped pings on a critical production server. The Blackberry is always on vibrate, and I doubt that the slight buzz would even be heard by anyone in the theater. At that point, I can decide whether or not I need to leave, or at least begin to plan what I will do when the movie ends. If I do decide to leave, I am no more of a bother than the tons of people getting up to piss every 15 minutes.
I would purposely avoid movie theaters that blocked my signal.

Re:What about cell phones

[AngryPuppy]

You don't get it or you're not listening. I have been on call 24x7x365 for three years now, and I'm not a doctor. I count on a pager for this. If I don't answer a page, I'm going to get nailed to the wall. More than once, and I'm out of a job. Some people don't get to wait until "time off" rolls around. Some of us NEVER get true time off.

Stop the presses.

[koreaman]

A new, better solution has been developed. They call it ENCRYPTION!!! Oh how wonderful. Now we don't even need to repaint our houses.

DUPE *D*U*P*E

[TheMysteriousFuture]

It is a DUPE from LESS then TWO weeks ago.

Honestly, do the "Editors" not even read the site?

I know it's probably always been like this around here...but still.

On another note, did anybody else notice that /. was down for a few hours earlier today?

How useful!

[Myrkridian42]

This is great, unless you YOURSELF want to connect from the outside, like from your backyard.

What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[Krankheit]

How will you cover areas such as windows? If this doesn't cover the windows, war drivers are not foiled.

laced with copper and aluminum fibers

[ctime]

Anyone else smell a law suit? Oh, you can't smell? Or breathe? Must be the laced with copper and aluminum fibers paint you've just smothered the babies crib and the inside of your house with. Does anyone else think this crap just wreaks of a law suit? Or are we all disoriented and stricken with alzheimers due to the aluminum and copper laced paint chips we just unknowningly ate with our cherrios?

Good luck using a cell phone inside!

[steve426f]

Not only will this block Wi-Fi, but it will also block cell phone communications as well. Of course, some may appreciate the paint's second use as a cell phone blocker!

Useless for general population.

[stuartkahler]

Even if you thought it was worth it to prevent your neighbors' wifi from interfering with yours, it's still stupid. You kill your cell phone reception, probably reduce your TV reception, and it's impractical to paint your ceilings, floors, windows, doors and fireplace. It's expensive to apply, and can't be removed easily, so when you go to sell nobody wants the property. For all the costs and effort, you can hire someone to wire ports into every room in your house. Or put repeaters in every room. Painting every surface of your home to get good wifi is asinine.
If I did work somewhere that was sensitive to electronic espionage, I'd have rooms built to spec with actual faraday cages and other countermeasures, not modified as an afterthought.

Re:Brains! Brains! Brains!

[dbIII]

It is quite possible that aluminium doesn't cause the disease by itself, but aluminium is very synengestic with other metals, and increasing the quantity of aluminium load on a person

You missed my point so I'll point it out more bluntly - the original alzheimers research was complete garbage due to contamination of the samples.

aluminium is very synengestic with other metals

I trained in metallurgy but I don't haven't a clue what you are trying to say here.

dramatically increase the damage things like mercury is doing in their body for example

How? The mercury in my teeth is alloyed with other metals which prevent it from leaching out under any temperatures that won't instantly kill me - it is formed into a stable compound.

Other metals may just cause alzheimers

We don't know, all we know is that there was some flawed research which considered only elements and not compounds and didn't consider the contaminants.

they eventually put it down to that these areas had aluminium filtration equipment leaching the metal

So how does the aluminium get dissolved in the water and end up in our systems? It takes a huge amount of energy to break down alumina (aluminium oxidises very rapidly so that is the form it will be in) and stomach acid even concentrated several times and heated up isn't going to do it.

Re:Stop the presses-Impossible!!

[Zixia]

Physics verses encryption? My votes for physics.?

Do you have any clue what you are talking about? Other than physically torturing someone for information, or building a better brute-force machine, physics doesn't break encryption. Mathmatics does.

I don't think he means that physics beats encryption, but that he would rather choose a solution to cracking networks involving physics, like the paint, than using encryption.

Why not limit the WiFi-range?

[Nice2Cats]

If the geometry is right (that is, if the outside wall of your house doesn't reach right up to the street), why doen't you buy a good WiFi access point so you can limit the range instead? Even Apple's Airport Express lets you do that. We've cut the signal strength to 50%, and instead of potentially giving half the neighborhood access, it is limited to our living- and bedroom (don't ask).

I mean, that can't be more expensive than painting your whole house, can it?

Won't work...

[neowolf]

Might have some chance in a room with no windows and a steel door, but painting a house or office with this would have minimal impact on war drivers, if any at all.

I have a wireless network (running very cheap, low power equipment) inside an all-steel warehouse building with steel screens and grates on the windows. I can access my wireless network reliably in a cafe down the block (brick building across the alley, roughly 1/2 block from the AP). It's also easily accessible from any of the nearby streets and parking lots. If all that steel isn't going to stop a WiFi signal- I really doubt paint with metal flakes in it will.

Really- a house or office building would have to be built from the ground up to shield RF if that's what someone really wants. Seems pointless and really "tin-foil hat" to me. I'm sure the company will get lots of paranoid people or people with disposable income to buy their paint though...