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

[drgonzo59]

Yap, at just about 1.9 GHz (or at .9 or 1.8 GHz for my European friends).

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

[pyrote]

Does your phone operate at frequencies from 100 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz" ?
Yes, 1.9Ghz actually

Re:What about cell phones

[drgonzo59]

Or perhaps in movie theatres, but then jamming would be easier than painting I think. Also, doctors or any person who has to be on-call might object to that.

Re:What about cell phones

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Climb up the chimney? You could just walk outside. You don't have pointy-hair perchance?

Re:What about cell phones

[plover]

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'm all in favor of jamming cell phones in theatres. Patrons are already far too noisy and rude, and cell phones have not helped.

Re:What about cell phones

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that a tinfoil hat will protect you a lot more then a metal mesh in your walls. Plus you can leave the house with it on as well, very portable.

You do leave the house, right?

Re:What about cell phones

[FredThompson]

It's still illegal to jam cell phones in the U.S., isn't it?

Re:What about cell phones

[petecarlson]

What you want is a passive repeater. Of course it would also repeat wifi as they are quite close (2.4 vs 1.9) If you know where the closest cell tower is you could do a directional passive repeater and aim it at the cell phone tower.

Re:What about cell phones

[ZhuLien]

Maybe I missed something, but if I wanted to run my own publicly accessible wireless website I should be allowed to right? Such a product would stop people connecting to my machine which is just silly, especially if I was to move into a new house, I'd have to attempt to strip the entire house of this paint so that people can access my server from outside.

Re:What about cell phones

[DrMrLordX]

Which is why he probably tells them to use their phones outside, and produces conditions in which the phones won't work inside. Even if the phones do boost output when out of contact with a tower, anyone who is getting no signal inside his house will swiflty go outside until their phone can contact a tower.

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

[lachlan76]

But schools allow students to use mobile phones outside of lessons, and the teachers need to carry them.

Re:What about cell phones

[X0563511]

Than explain why the big hospital in Central Los Angeles disables cell phones with reproaching message? ( i forget the name of the hospital ) - it did it to me when i was there last summer.

Re:What about cell phones

[bechthros]

"I'm all in favor of jamming cell phones in theatres."

I seem to remember hearing something about them doing exactly that, like in Europe or something...

Re:What about cell phones

[boaworm]

WHY do teachers NEED to carry cell phones? And even if that was the case, they could be wearing simple wireless phones connected to the landbased phone system, the signal should stay within the building...

I had other things in mind though. All those people who are afraid of the new 3G frequencies and the problems that can cause, can we simply not paint their houses?

Or this discussion we had a while back about amish people not allowing cell phones. What a great opportunity for them.

So, the last question is.. what happens if i put this paint one a cell base station. Can i simply drive by and spray a station, and render it inoperable?

Re:What about cell phones

[azuretongue]

Here is a fun test:
1. Stick your cell phone in the microwave
2. Call it.
3. If your phone rings your microwave is not properly sheilded against microwave radation.

On the other hand since cell phones can call out of most microwaves, I don't think that they will have any problem with a little paint.

Re:What about cell phones

[maxwell demon]

I've heared rumors of a revolutionary invention which could relieve you from climbing up the chimney. It's called fixed line phone.

Re:What about cell phones

[Joe U]

Why not just have all doctors work 20 hours a day 7 days a week? Even better yet, have YOUR doctor follow that schedule.

I like mine to have time off.

The on-call system is to allow doctors to work only when needed all hours of the day and night. That way they can get some time to themselves AFTER they work about 10 to 12 hours straight.

Re:What about cell phones

[Anonymous Coward]

900 megahertz overclocked to 1.2 gigahertz.

fucker rings FAST!!!

Re:What about cell phones

[zymurgyboy]

Damn. What kind of house do live in? Or did you just paint the doors and windows shut, too, for extra NSA-quality security? :)

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

[arivanov]

IR shielding on more expensive glass does it already. Painting the doors is also a bloody good idea and I have alluminized floor underlay already (saves you up to 20-30% of heat loss through the floor). T

Actually, they are marketing it the wrong way. They are marketing it as means of signal not getting out. I think the case of signal not getting in is considerably more interesting.

Which leads to the nice and obvious results. The idiot neigbour with the new and flashy access point he got for Xmas is no longer interfering with your wireless.

While at it, alluminium laced paints are usually highly combustible. What is the fire safety rating of this stuff?

Re:What about cell phones

[cL0h]

No they won't. They'll go "Oh! There's no signal in here if they notice and otherwise they'll just miss calls."

Re:What about cell phones

[1lus10n]

::mock old style concesion stand salesman::

"Step right up, come one come all. Get your goobers, popcorn, soda, gummy bears, snowcaps, twizzlers, snickers, nachos, gags and muzzles"
/endmock
I think that about covers my opinion on the matter.

Re:What about cell phones

[cL0h]

The doctors I know leave their phone on vibrate, sit at the back of the theatre, go out to answer a call
Where I come from and in most of Europe this point is moot. It's called etiquette. There is no rule book but people respect other peoples privacy.
So you get people doing things like: speaking quietly on their phone when in company, ignoring calls and texts during a conversation and leaving the room or going somewhere private to answer the phone.
Crazy eh!

Re:What about cell phones

[Dougie Cool]

It used to be practically impossible to get a decent signal inside the actual screen because of jamming, but you could often get a signal in the lobby.

That was back in the days when mobiles had little aerials and rubbish reception anyway. These days, the network connections seem to be a lot hardier. I couldn't lose even one bar of connection on a new Nokia when I put it inside an earthed metal box, so the whole jamming system is no longer particularly effective.

The lynch-mob system of angry patrons descending on inconsiderate chavs, however, works a treat.

Re:What about cell phones

[Mercedes308]

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'm on call 24 hours, seven days a week for 335 days per year. I have to have a phone on me all the time. Obviously by your view I shouldn't be allowed to go to the movies. Whats wrong with sitting near the exit and having the phone on vibrate? I suppose you have a 9 - 5 job and can't understand that other people who work different hours should have a life as well.

Re:What about cell phones

[RajivSLK]

So, the last question is.. what happens if i put this paint one a cell base station. Can i simply drive by and spray a station, and render it inoperable?

Probably. But you could also bust it with a baseball bat. Yay vandalism is easy! Tommorow i'll teach you how to count to 9.

Re:What about cell phones

[_Spirit]

You people should start building proper houses of steel reinforced concrete with windows like you mention. No need to paint the whole thing now, just the small wooden bits that are there to keep the panes of glass in place. It'll also stay up in a hurricane, be a bit less of a fire hazard and be easier to keep cool / warm as appropriate. It'll also keep a lot of the interference out (though it will stop/severely weaken a decent signal to a different floor depending on the layout of your house and placement of your AP).

I am actually planning to move my access point as reception around the house seems poor right now because the AP is now in my study (outside the main side walls of the house)

Re:What about cell phones

[mysticwhiskey]

Mobile overclocking: Damn phone gets hot, requires a massive heatsink & fan off to the side... pretty soon websites like modyourcellphone.com appear and people post silent cooling solutions like water cooling with backpack attachments and the like.... hmmmm. And the Java games still play too slow. :)

Re:What about cell phones

[rjshields]

You people should start building proper houses of steel reinforced concrete...

They do in Mexico.

Re:What about cell phones

[LegionX]

How many minutes was i supposed to heat it? ;)

Re:What about cell phones

[MegaHamsterX]

Sounds like all the older houses in South Florida when people actually had a clue. They were the ones still standing after Andrew.

My current house seems to eat WiFi signal, there seems to be 12 inch solid concrete walls in the middle of the house that wifi doesn't seem to like at all, neither did my 18 inch masonry bit when drilling to run ethernet to get around the wifi problem, I hit some of the steel in the wall and hosed a good bit, that cost way to much money.

In the end this is a massive pita as my cordless is all but useless excpt in a few rooms as is the WiFi, and due to the tint on the windows very little usable signal actually escapes the house....err, yeah it's cool living in an unintentional faraday cage, I feel your pain, need to set up an additional WAP to get around this.

Re:What about cell phones

[wild_berry]

I couldn't tell if you were joking or what. However, the microwave oven isn't going to be fully shielded becuse its microwaves are in a different part of the spectrum (off top of head: 12cm wavelength and corresponding 240GHz frequency) for which it would be silly to insulate the microwave oven against all electromagnetic radation.

Re:What about cell phones

[Dogtanian]

I'm all in favor of jamming cell phones in theatres.

I'm all in favor of jamming them up the user's ass if they use them in a cinema.

Re:What about cell phones

[csteinle]

GSM phones regularly try to poll their base station even when not in use. When there's no signal, they do this at maximum power.

Re:What about cell phones

[dnoyeb]

Thats exactly what we need. An electromagnetic power war with cell phones.

AFAIK, the only ones in USA allowed to jam anything is the Government.

Also, am I too paint the roof too? This mess has no chance of "working". Though it will probably do what it claims to some degree, you just can't apply it in an appropriate fashion.

Re:What about cell phones

[Hognoxious]

Just replace your foil hat with a foil hut.

Re:What about cell phones

[Hognoxious]

Whats wrong with sitting near the exit and having the phone on vibrate?

Nobody does it, that's what.

Re:What about cell phones

[Hognoxious]

it would be silly to insulate the microwave oven against all electromagnetic radation.

Especially if it has a glass door.

Re:What about cell phones

[_Spirit]

Writing the post above made me get off my lazy a**e and rewire/move around the whole thing. I now put the AP inside the main house and ran a wire to my study (everything in there was wired anyway). I seem to have great reception all over the house now and even reasonable reception from my study. I had loads of trouble with interference from neighbours' wifi (I can see 7 networks that broadcast their SSID from my study) but that seems gone now.

Re:What about cell phones

[emilymildew]

Because school violence is becoming so rampant and having 100 kids with cell phones will make everything better when the kids they picked on for 10 years start shooting!

(That was sarcasm.)

Re:What about cell phones

[ProppaT]

I can't wait for the first lawsuit. Headline: "Nerd sues Motorolla, phone 'melts nuts off'"

Re:What about cell phones

[dougmc]

it would be silly to insulate the microwave oven against all electromagnetic radation.

Indeed. Especially since you couldn't then see inside and see that your dinner had exploded and made a big mess.

Especially if it has a glass door.

Your microwave does not have a glass door. First of all, it's probably plastic, but beyond that, if you look carefully, you'll see a metal mesh in the door. It's an approximation of a Faraday Cage and it's designed to keep most of the energy at 2.4 gHz inside. Since most cell phones work at less than 2.4 gHz, it'll shield most of your cell phone signal too.

Note that I said most. Your microwave may use 700 watts of power -- letting a few watts leak out isn't going to hurt anything but your WiFi performance. This may scare you a bit, but consider that your cell phone may transmit at about 5 watts right next to your head at a similar frequency.

In any event, if the microwave only keeps in 99.5% of the signal, that's only 3.5 watts escaping from that 700 watt microwave. That would mean a signal reduction of a factor of 200, but that's probably only one or two bars or so on your cell phone. Which is why it still works in the microwave (or a car, or airplane, etc.) (And I don't suggest turning the microwave on with your phone in it.)

Re:What about cell phones

[lukewarmfusion]

As doctors, sometimes they have an obligation to be able to be contacted anywhere they go. When a doctor is "on-call," they are not allowed to consume alcohol, must respond to a pager, cell, or telephone call, and must be able to return to the hospital within a certain period of time.

I'm sure the rules vary for different practices, hospitals, etc., but this isn't exactly a rare practice.

Re:What about cell phones

[Green Salad]

"...consider that your cell phone may transmit at about 5 watts right next to your head at a similar frequency..."

I'm not confident that cell phones transmit at 5 watts. I think the relatively powerful analog "bag" phones used 0.5 watts and the new digitals are a fraction of that. I'd guess 5 watts would be a bit tough on the tiny batteries.

Re:What about cell phones

[dougmc]

GSM phones regularly try to poll their base station even when not in use. When there's no signal, they do this at maximum power.

To reuse a common phrase ... mod parent up.

This is pretty obvious when it happens, because your TV or computer speakers or walkman or stereo may very well pick up the signal, and you can hear it. On my computer speakers, it sounds like a sequence of beeps for about 2 seconds -- very clear. (Remarkably clear, now that I think about it.) But it's very obviously your phone, because 1) it doesn't happen if you left the phone at home, and 2) moving the phone nearer the speakers makes it louder.

If you're inside something like a subway car, not only will the signal not ever make it to a cell phone tower (since you're underground), causing it to transmit at full power, but the signal will also bounce around inside the big metal cage that is the car, and multiply that by every cell phone in there -- meaning that if you're afraid of (relatively) low power RF signals, this isn't a good place to be.

(By relatively low power, I mean much lower than the soldiers in Russia who would stand in front of the microwave dish to warm up a bit.)

Re:What about cell phones

[dougmc]

I'm not confident that cell phones transmit at 5 watts. I think the relatively powerful analog "bag" phones used 0.5 watts and the new digitals are a fraction of that.

Good point. You're right -- the FCC limit for a handheld phone (in the US, anyways) is 0.5 watts. But I'm pretty sure the digital phones can go almost that high if they need to -- but only if they need to. They cut the power back if they can still reach the tower with less power.

Re:What about cell phones

[Tassach]

Perhaps a cellphone section of the theatre?

Right after they put a peeing section in the pool.

Re:What about cell phones

[winkydink]

Been on a commuter train in Italy lately? The problem isn't limited to North America.

Re:What about cell phones

[Electrum]

Whats wrong with sitting near the exit and having the phone on vibrate?

Nobody does it, that's what.

Or perhaps you simply never notice the people who do and only notice the people who don't?

Re:What about cell phones

[fubar1971]

Hell, they should just bring back lead based paint. It's quite durable and can have the same effects. Trying setting up an AP in an old house that has layers of old lead paint on the inside and out. Good luck getting any type of consistent connections.

Besides, lead based paint whas removed from the market because people were experiencing health problems from being exposed to it. Would this new paint with copper and aluminum cause the same or new set of health problems? I was just over to Force Field Wireless' web site and can not seem to find any information on possible health concerns.

Re:What about cell phones

[cg]

What about EMS? Not all medical on-call workers are elitist, BMW drivers...

Not all important on-call work is medical either.

Re:What about cell phones

[Ayaress]

The doctors I know leave their phone on vibrate, sit at the back of the theatre, go out to answer a call

That's just fine and dandy. It's Bob the plumber sitting in the front row with his cell phone set to the most obnoxious ring tone ever, who can't always remember how to work the "damn fancy doohickamajig" and when he finally does answer it, he sits right there in the front of the theater saying, "Yeah? Yeah? I can't hear you, recpetion's horrible. What was that?"

Re:What about cell phones

[Hognoxious]

Your microwave does not have a glass door.

Hey! you! Get the heck out of my kitchen!

First of all, it's probably plastic, but beyond that, if you look carefully, you'll see a metal mesh in the door.

I'm perfectly aware what it is and why it's there. I suppose you'd argue that a car wind[screen|shield] isn't glass too, since there's usually at least one layer of plastic in it?

I was merely making the point (which you seem to have got) that visible light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, and it does go through the non-visibly-opaque door section provided for that purpose.

Re:What about cell phones

[B1ackDragon]

I don't really have anything to say, I just thought you might like a reply that wasn't troll or flamebait.

Re:What about cell phones

[Hoi Polloi]

I'm building a large concrete bunker, deep underground, where I'll sit in peace wearing my aluminum foil hat and listening to the voices coming from my fillings.

Re:What about cell phones

[surefooted1]

pretty soon websites like modyourcellphone.com appear...

The closest right now would be howardforums.com. You can already do quite a bit of modding...

Re:What about cell phones

[Oddly_Drac]

"So you get people doing things like: speaking quietly on their phone when in company, ignoring calls and texts during a conversation and leaving the room or going somewhere private to answer the phone."

Dangerously communistic, mon frere. Where's the law? Where's the enforcement for people who cannot conceive of the disapproval field generated by PO'd people? How do the lawyers afford their Mercs?

It'll be anarchy if that etiquette and politeness thing catches on. Anarchy, I say.

Re:What about cell phones

[hesiod]

> Now, how hard is that?

Well, considering the alternative is to put your phone on vibrate, VERY hard. And who the fuck are you to think that you're important enough to waste an usher's time finding you? It's not their job, they aren't going to do it. The first time they forget where you are or don't bother finding you, that doctor is in a world of trouble.

How about you quit whining about things that really don't affect you? How hard is that?

Re:What about cell phones

[B3ryllium]

If you put in in an "earthed metal box", how could you see it to tell if there was any reception at all?

This sounds strikingly like Schroedinger's Cellphone. You have reception and no reception at the same time. ;-)

Re:What about cell phones

[Govno]

What's wrong with that is the fact that in a dark movie theater the phone lights up like a friggin' flare. Cell phones in movie theaters present both noise and light pollution. Docs can have as much of a life as anyone else. Do stuff on your time off and work when you're supposed to be working, like everyone else.

Re:What about cell phones

[hesiod]

> if I wanted to run my own publicly accessible wireless website I should be allowed to right? Such a product would stop people connecting to my machine

Then don't paint your house or move into a house that has this paint. It's not like you won't be able to find regular paint any more. You'd probably have a heck of a time finding a place that DOES sell this. Or, as another pointed out, you can always use an antenna outside. You can drill a cable hole through this paint.

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

[hesiod]

> I can see 7 networks that broadcast their SSID from my study

You might want to find the other six, then -- could be a security problem. (key phrase is "broadcast their SSID from my study")

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.

Re:What about cell phones

[kaustik]

Well, we are all quite relieved that you got back down on your fat a**e and decided to write about your wonderfully exciting adventure. Maybe tomorrow you can tell us about something even more thrilling, like brushing your teeth or replacing that empty toilet paper roll.

Re:What about cell phones

[Fulcrum of Evil]

So now a prereq to be a doctor is to give up one's ability to go out and enjoy a movie?

I don't see why - there's always a cinema/drafthouse, where a certain amount of chatter is expected and they serve a nice dinner to boot.

Re:What about cell phones

[hesiod]

> lead based paint whas removed from the market because people were experiencing health problems from being exposed to it.

The problem isn't just because it's a metal, the problem is that lead itself causes health issues mostly unrelated to how it's used. In paint, the lead is in tiny particles that are easier to be consumed accidentally (eg, paint chips on the floor where a small child is playing). I wouldn't recommend eating copper filings, mind you, but lead is more dangerous because of the toxicity that aluminum & copper simply do not have.

If you are interested (probably not, but what the heck), a few sites contradict each other as to whether lead can be absorbed through the skin (such as by playing in a sandbox with lead painted sides). Mosts sites I found say you can, but this Mayo Clinic Article (and WA State Dept. of Ecology) says that most products (except diesel gasoline) containing lead do not enter through skin. This EMSA article and this ACNEM study say otherwise.

Re:What about cell phones

[plover]

Hey, there's a great solution. Put the marketplace to work.

A movie chain that advertises "We jam cell phones!" might see a lot of business.

Think about it. If you're on call, or you're a cell phone addict, you'll say "what a stupid idea, I'm never going to that theatre. I'm going to the one across the street." Fine by me, I'll be in that first theatre.

Now, if we could just make them "stroller-hostile" while remaining "wheelchair-friendly" ...

Re:What about cell phones

[Phurd Phlegm]

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 simply don't go to movies because they're too damned loud. I could wear earplugs and hear quite clearly. Given that this is true, what the heck difference does a patron on a cell phone make? Or a pager? The only way you'll hear it even if you're wearning it is if the sound track is totally silent at that point, in which case you're not missing anything.

Of course, for the price of two movie tickets, two sodas, and a large popcorn I can rent a DVD, buy a case of pop, a bag of unpopped corn, some cooking oil, and probably a cheap saucepan to pop it in. I just don't see the upside to the movie theater experience unless you just HAVE to see the latest wunderflik before it comes out on DVD....

Re:What about cell phones

[AngryPuppy]

Option three, coward. I go to the movies. I silence my pager. It stays in my pocket until I get out of the theater should it go off.

Re:What about cell phones

[cL0h]

Sorry I meant crazy eh ?

Re:What about cell phones

[default luser]

Lead is a heavy metal, poisonous to humans. Copper and Aluminum, on the other hand, are perfectly ok lighter metals (like iron, zinc, etc.). Your body requires trace amounts of each to function properly.

You're lucky your blood uses hemoglobin instead of copper-based hemocyanin (oxygen carrier in invertibrates), or you'd be ingesting more copper than iron.

Re:What about cell phones

[Cryect]

Ummm, you do know doctors are on call all the time... So they can get around to watching movies I guess when they retire is what you are saying...

Re:What about cell phones

[xannibal]

Look - you chose an elite profession with more responsibility than the average person. No, you don't get to go to the movies when you're on call if it means that you (or one of your collegues) has to have your phone ringer on (or forgets to turn it off). If you want to give up that responsibility and work at the mall THEN you can go to the movies WHENEVER YOU WANT. I think your salary is in line with your responsibility, btw.

Re:What about cell phones

[kaustik]

We have a local theater that actually advertises a "Baby Night" when you can bring your screaming brat with you. It is always an adult movie that is playing. I can't imagine how that would be fun for anyone involved... Maybe I should go an talk really loud on my cell phone, kind of like pinching someone's arm who just broke their leg.

Re:What about cell phones

[drgonzo59]

you won't have voices coming from the fillings since you are wearing the tin foil hat ;-)

Re:What about cell phones

[Macgyver7017]

I'm on call 24x7x365 for my county's search and rescue team. My pager (and my cell phone for that matter) is always on vibrate unless I'm sleeping.

I like seeing movies sometimes too ya know. Throwing Ice at poeple who's electronic toys make noise in the theater seems to work for me.

Re:What about cell phones

[drgonzo59]

I have noticed that too. I even turned it on and everytime I dial a number after the call was put through I can hear a distinctive beep. Then I moved my cellphone by my tower and there were some spots (I guess by the sound card) that the beeps really get amplified.

Re:What about cell phones

[Deagol]

Some of us NEVER get true time off.

So those of us who make saner career choices must always accomodate those of us who don't? For leisure activities, no less?

Re:What about cell phones

[kaladorn]

Probably not. It takes two coats to render lower frequency (relatively) stuff at low power inoperative. Three coats to stop higher frequency stuff. But the power of a wireless station can be up to 30-50x the power of the device (max power comparisons). You aren't going to stop that... you might reduce the sensitivity (range) of the reciever but you won't likely block outgoing transmission.

Re:What about cell phones

[A beautiful mind]

Make a cell phone out of bubblegum-paper (which works through cell phone blocking).

Disclaimer: I agree with parent.

Re:What about cell phones

[Roger W Moore]

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?

No, like the rest of us doctors are allowed to have a life when they are not working. My dad was a GP and would never dream of going to watch a film when he was on call. Not only is it disruptive to everyone else but you can't watch the film either if you are dealing with a call. Not only that but is the doctor's mind really going to be on the call or what is going on on the screen? As a patient I'd switch doctors if I found mine displaying such a gross lack of professionalism.

Re:What about cell phones

[AngryPuppy]

Meh... I'm on call. I didn't say I'm constantly being paged, I simply have to be reachable if/when those pages come. When I am paged, no one knows it but me. People simply see me leave the room. How you are accomodating me, I don't know. I just don't want to be hampered.

Re:What about cell phones

[kaladorn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't there an issue re: alumnimum and Alzheimers (pots?). I know that a pot you cook food in differs from paint, but if the dusted particulates can get loose, would it be any different? Now, the obvious answer would be to mix this stuff with your primer and make sure you overcoate with a layer or two of other paint (coloured) and then maybe a sealer layer.

Re:What about cell phones

[Vellmont]

Sure. Then that obligation means you can't go places where you can no signal. Tough bounce.

Re:What about cell phones

[AJWM]

What the hell do they do if you get hit by a bus? Or just come down with food poisoning? Don't you have a backup?

I'm on call 24x7x182 -- alternate weeks -- my backup and I alternate. (And we're backup for the duty pager if whoever has it doesn't respond in 15 min, or if it's something he needs help with.)

Re:What about cell phones

[AJWM]

Certain lead salts taste sweet, hence the temptation for a kid to eat paint chips containing them. I don't think that's true of aluminum or copper. (Besides which, Al and Cu are less harmful if ingested, and houses already have all kinds of that stuff lying around -- wiring, coins, foil, cookware, etc...)

Re:What about cell phones

[Mercedes308]

Nobody does it, that's what. I always sit next to the exit.

Re:What about cell phones

[Mercedes308]

I hate to break it to you, but if you're on call "24 hours, seven days a week for 335 days per year", you don't have a life Actually on average I work less hours per day than most people. I spend about 4 hours per day sorting shit out, then I go. I only get called if there is a fuckup.

Re:What about cell phones

[hesiod]

> You missed the humour there then?

Yes, actually, because there are plenty of people out there who would think that was a realistic solution. They, of course, have never had a job that required them to be on call or had other peoples' lives depending on them.

Sorry.

Dupe

[BenFranske]

This story was already covered here

Re:Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you need to put on TWO coats for maximum protection.

Re:Dupe

[kaustik]

A funny AC post... hmmmm.....

Re:Dupe

[gardyloo]

I'm fairly certain you mean the song "Spam Spam Spam Spam".

Re:Dupe

[BeesTea]

My favorite is the people who post "DUPE" knowing full well that the thread won't be going away from it. At this stage in the posts life, does it even matter that it's a dupe now ? It's not even as if people will go to the original thread and read the comments there.
-BeesT

Re:Dupe

[roseblood]

No, if you were a dwarf from the diskworkd you'd know all the lyrics to the GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD song, and ALL the remixes.

Re:Dupe

[gardyloo]

If I were a dwarf on the Discworld, I'd know how to spell "Discworld". :P

Re:Dupe

[Dorothy 86]

or possibly "Badger Badger Badger Bader"

Re:Dupe

[gardyloo]

Oh, god, I went for almost two weeks without having that stuck in my head. You, ma'am (just going from the name, here), are an utter bastard! (But I totally respect that.)

Re:Dupe

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It's a dupe, and so is my comment:

Anybody interested in some beautiful aluminium siding?

Re:Dupe

[Dorothy 86]

*sigh* I suppose I should have picked something other than my halloween costume for the year I made this account... I'm now a woman on /.

Oh well... at least I received the prize I was after at the Haloween party... most disturbing :-D

Re:Dupe

[Zen Punk]

Seriously, anyone with enough time on his hands to find any specific thing with Slashdot's search feature probably hasn't seen the sun in weeks. I bet he knows who delivers the best pizza in town.

Re:Dupe

[iamhassi]

" This story was already covered...."

that's alright, the new description sounds better

Re:Dupe

[trashyspaceman]

Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe Banana-Phone!

Re:Dupe

[anakin876]

are you sure the words aren't "glod glod glod?" (and yes the mispelling is another allusion to a discworld book for those not "in the know")

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.

Re:Stop the presses.

[Frennzy]

Yes! Because WEP was Soooooo good...it and it's wacky old 24 bit init vector.

If you're going to be sarcastic, at least be more specific.

Re:Stop the presses.

[utlemming]

However, in areas, i.e. apartment buildings, this paint would be extremely useful. In some apartment buildings there are too many WiFi access points. A paint like this could help people to prevent problems with comflicting signals -- in otherwords you keep your signal in, but you can also keep other signals out, thus reducing interference. The paint has far more implicications in protecting wireless technologies as well as keeping wireless out. University testing centers could use it to insulate a room against radio signals without using jamming equipement. Hospitals could use it to prevent signals from interfering with sensative medical equipment. The government applications are endless -- paint an embassy with the stuff, and you prevent foriegn signal intellegence from happening. If someone thought a place was bugged, they could simply paint the room and place some film on the windows. So while encryption is a smart way to go, it allows people the security of wires with out having the wires and can put borders on signals. My only question is what about the carpet -- say an apartment complex? You can't paint the carpet, so the leak goes through the floor. Does that mean that your downstairs neighbor gets to enjoy a really strong signal?

Re:Stop the presses.

[zymurgyboy]

Why, so he beat any humor an irony right out of the discussion?

Maybe he means WPA or RADIUS, or even WEP, possibly with MAC restrictions and strong passwords. Maybe he means running everything through ssh tunnels on his wide-ass open wireless network.

Why would encryption equate with WEP necessarily?

Re:Stop the presses.

[zymurgyboy]

My only question is what about the carpet -- say an apartment complex? You can't paint the carpet, so the leak goes through the floor. Does that mean that your downstairs neighbor gets to enjoy a really strong signal?

That might not give you a very desirable result, but you could paint the floor before laying the carpet, or pull it up, paint and re-lay it. The floors in some the apartments I've lived in were so full of rebar concrete, metal framing, and/or duct work that wifi signals didn't get through to begin with.

This could stop it from getting through the sheetrock walls, however.

Re:Stop the presses.

[Gob Blesh It]

"A paint like this could help people to prevent problems with comflicting signals -- in otherwords you keep your signal in, but you can also keep other signals out, thus reducing interference."

Maybe I'm mistaken, but can't you just switch to a different frequency if you're getting too much interference? I know on my Linksys 802.11g router, you can pick from any of 11 channels. It's a setting on the front page of the router administration page, so it's not terribly hard to discover, either.

Is it really that common for the entire band, all eleven channels, to be saturated to the point where you need to paint a Faraday cage around your apartment to get a decent signal? I live in a converted tenement building in Manhattan--now full of 200 s.f. studios--and even with eight wireless networks currently in range, I still get full signal and full speed on mine.

Your other arguments are very compelling. Thanks for the thought-provoking post.

Re:Stop the presses.

[teraph]

It's not common yet, but it will be soon.

This guy is having that problem.

And it's not just routers. In my house, we tried to get a 2.4GHz phone and had to take it back because it selected a different channel each time we got a call. We had a random chance of being knocked offline whenever we got a phone call.

I think our downstairs neighbors just got a new phone. We've started randomly losing our wireless...

Re:Stop the presses.

[Meostro]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but can't you just switch to a different frequency if you're getting too much interference?

It won't help to switch to a different frequency if you've got 12 WiFi neighbors instead of your eight.

Doesn't matter to me 'cause I live in the boonies (nearest neighbor = 1/4 mile), but for high-density housing such as apartments/dorms this stuff could be quite useful, especially since wireless use is growing fast these days.

Another point might be that by removing interference, everything could be set to transmit at lower power, and there could be even smaller or longer lasting devices without any significant technical advances. My handheld could last hours longer if it had a cleaner signal that it didn't have to amp as much.

(No jokes about "smaller" or "longer lasting" or "my handheld", please)

Re:Stop the presses.

[canofbutter]

Or you could do what I do to secure my wireless network: I allow anything that wants to connect to get an IP, they just can't do anything with it other than connect to one port on one machine that is running OpenVPN. Once connected, all the traffic going over that link is encrypted. No WEP, no WPA, etc and it was really easy to set up on a cheap OpenBSD box with pf.

Re:Stop the presses.

[Frennzy]

That's what I mean. Since he didn't say which, he *could* mean WEP. And it isn't secure.

By the way, MAC filtering isn't encryption (and is trivial to defeat), strong passwords aren't encryption, and RADIUS isn't encryption.

Dupe

[TheFlyingGoat]

Found by searching Slashdot for "paint".

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/29/2 12 8253&tid=193&tid=172&tid=218

Neal, you're dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's water base doesn't mean it will wash away with water. Latex paint is water based... Once the water evaporates the emulsion hardens.

Re:Neal, you're dumb

[amerinese]

Sort of. It also peels, cracks, powders and gets washed back into the soil. Neal may have made a poor implication that only water-based paints would leak particulate into the soil, but exterior paint will still go into the soil. Which also probably means that adding metals to make your own paint mix is either illegal or environmentally dangerous enough that it should be illegal.

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?

Re:DUPE *D*U*P*E

[xstonedogx]

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

No.

Re:DUPE *D*U*P*E

[Sparr0]

Parent post is a DUPE from LESS than TWO minutes ago.

Honestly, do the "Posters" not even read concurrent posts?

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

On another note, :-p

Re:DUPE *D*U*P*E

[krbvroc1]

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

Yes, at least an hour of Internal Server Error. Same with newsforge.

Re:DUPE *D*U*P*E

[iwan-nl]

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

Yes, I noticed. The scary part: My first reaction was to log into irc and ask if others where experiencing the error too. For a moment I thought the sysadmins at the office had found out about my /. addiction and wrote a firewall rule just for me :-|

Man, I need a life. That or a more interesting job...

Re:DUPE *D*U*P*E

[JollyFinn]

Parent post is a DUPE from LESS than TWO minutes ago.
Honestly, do the "Posters" not even read concurrent posts?
I know, it's probably always been like this around here...but still.

Thats two minutes and he used more than a few words. [Compared to few random samples in his previous posts.] So it probably took him more than two minutes to write and think how it worked. So in overall they had some collision. With multithreaded software we typicly use some sort of locking mechanism to prevent conflicts of two separate threads accessing one thing. Shouldn't slashcode include a nice little lock to prevent dupe:s ;)

Re:DUPE *D*U*P*E

[Sparr0]

what, you guys dont get paid to read /. ? :)

wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

they make tin foil hats for houses now...

Re:wow...

[valkyriekl]

It's a house-shaped tinfoil hat.

Re:wow...

[bprime]

Speaking of foil - how come no one has commented yet regarding the horrible pun in the article's title? "House paint FOILS wardrivers". Jesus. He who would pun would pick a pocket.

Whatever...

[A Boy and His Blob]

Paint your house with this stuff? Psshh, I take care of the SOURCE of the problem, I shoot war drivers with my paintball gun.

Re:Whatever...

[raider_red]

Paintball! That's for wussies. I use an AR-15 for that kind of thing.

Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[aardwolf204]

My dad was a war photographer in Korea. He had some level of clearance and once was working at a base on the coast of Florida photographing experimental weapons. He was walking around the facility and started talking to a major. The major was complaining about the fishing boats close off the coast, saying that they were known communist spies doing surveillance of the bases secret operations. The nature of the operations made them need to be outside and there was not much they could do about keeping the spies from photographing their operations from the fishing boats.

My dad suggested that they build a pipeline around the base and pump extremely hot water through it. The steam would keep the spies from getting clear photographs of the bases operations.

Ever been to the airport and notice that distortion coming off the top of the jets in the summer? The waviness is caused by the steam and heat coming from the plane. This is the basis for the pipeline.

The major had the pipeline constructed and shortly after the fishing boats stopped snooping around the base. Think of it as a photographic firewall...

Its not that OT when you think about it.

Re:Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[Engineer Andy]

interesting concept. i don't think it would be steam that is distorting the vision line as much as the distortion from the hot air rising (as you commented later in your post).

Great idea though.

Re:Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[qualico]

Might have been possible in the past, however, I certainly would not rely on that now.
Technology has been developed to see through the obscure.

Re:Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[Anonymous Custard]

Wouldn't a simple opaque fence have done the trick, or were they spying with infrared cameras?

Re:Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[Idarubicin]

Umm, no. Unless the plane (or your car) is wet, there isn't any steam coming from the top and you can't see heat. The waviness is due to the heating of the surrounding air (or exhaust).

Umm, sort of.

You get waviness and distortion above a hot surface even in the total absence of water or water vapour. I think the parent was getting at the correct idea, but was a bit unclear.

Hot air at a given pressure is less dense than cold air. It has a slightly lower refractive index. Around (and especially above) a hot surface, there will be convection currents and mixing of hot and cold air. What this gives you is a volume of air in which the index of refraction is constantly changing both in space and time. That, in turn, makes that volume a real mess...optically speaking. If someone is trying to take telephoto shots of something on the far side, then they will be out of luck.

Re:Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[BenEnglishAtHome]

What this gives you is a volume of air in which the index of refraction is constantly changing both in space and time. That, in turn, makes that volume a real mess...optically speaking. If someone is trying to take telephoto shots of something on the far side, then they will be out of luck.

Benchrest shooters call this mirage. On a hot day, looking at a small target 200 yards away through a 36-power riflescope can be a frustrating experience. The target can appear to move from side to side and up and down. Learning to tell what's going on based on how it appears to be moving is something that takes plenty of experience. Generally, though, the way the target moves can reveal which way the wind is blowing at the location of the mirage. Actually determining where the target is (i.e. where to aim) is done by keeping track of where the target appears to snap back to during those times when wind blows the mirage away.

It's a complicated and very real phenomenon. It's a huge PITA to see through during competition. My point is that the original poster may very well be "on target," so to speak. His "optical firewall" could actually work.

Re:Reminds me of a store my father once told me

[pthisis]

Hot air at a given pressure is less dense than cold air. It has a slightly lower refractive index. Around (and especially above) a hot surface, there will be convection currents and mixing of hot and cold air. What this gives you is a volume of air in which the index of refraction is constantly changing both in space and time.

Feynman has a good explanation of the mirage effect in chapter 2 of QED.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691 024170/qid=1105721137/sr=8-9/ref=pd_ka_2/104-21804 78-1633510?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
or http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnIn quiry.asp?userid=ba6JeIlAxb&isbn=0691024170&itm=13

How useful!

[Myrkridian42]

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

Re:How useful!

[Captain Splendid]

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

This is great, unless you YOURSELF want to dump a bunch of toxic paint into your backyard.

Re:How useful!

[westyx]

So all you need to do is carry around an ethernet cable while outside.

Re:How useful!

[naelurec]

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

Easy fix .. just put a wireless access point outside and connect it to your network. :)

Dupe

[complete loony]

(sung to the tune of the popular song "Gold Gold Gold Gold")
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe

Since it's a dupe....I repeat...

[SamMichaels]

I'm glad I can secure my wireless network...and also effectively stop my radio, mobile phone and 2-way radios too.

The best part is when the wife takes the cordless phone outside...second she shuts the door, DISCONNECTED! This would be a great Valentine's Day gift...secure networks, but no phone.

Oh wait...that's okay honey...we'll get VoIP (on a wired phone) and we have internet radio. What? Divorce? Don't touch that wire..it's impor
NO CARRIER

Interesting...

[gardyloo]

I'm not really familiar with wireless technology, but I DO know that a conductive shield around something will protect the thing inside it from extraneous electrical fields (as long as their frequency isn't super-high), but that any radiation produced by the thing inside the conductive shield will get out just fine. Because wireless things are on carriers of "only" several GHz, the increased size of the shield (as opposed to the normal antenna or whatever) shouldn't make any difference to phasings.
I guess that most people have their houses land-lined (or satellited, or whatever), and then use wireless networks to distribute bandwidth _within_ the house, right? Because putting a shield around such a house would only serve to keep outside signals from getting in, not inside signals from getting out. Of course, if protocols usually work with a "give-and-take" system, then this would cut off part of that, and people wouldn't be able to connect to your wireless system, but they _would_ be able to eavesdrop.

Re:Interesting...

[Eric Smith]

I DO know that a conductive shield around something will protect the thing inside it from extraneous electrical fields (as long as their frequency isn't super-high), but that any radiation produced by the thing inside the conductive shield will get out just fine.

And in this strange universe you apparently inhabit, how does the conductive shielding know which side is "in" and which is "out", so that it can pass the electromagnetic radiation in only one direction?

Shielding that does that would have the useful property of making perpetual motion possible; it would be to electromagnetic radiation as Maxwell's Demon is to heat.

"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics."
-- Homer Simpson to Lisa, after she constructs a perpetual motion machine

Re:Interesting...

[TheMysteriousFuture]

You are very mistaken with your out but not in theory.

http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com/search?query=farada y+cage

Re:Interesting...

[plover]

Umm, no. Faraday cages are bi-directional. They block EMF in either direction.

For proof, go stand in front of your microwave oven with the door closed, heat a glass of water for a minute, then go reproduce. If your children are born with n arms, where 1 < n < 3, the EMF was blocked.

Re:Interesting...

[gardyloo]

It's not difficult at all. An electrical conductor will rearrange its free charges so as to make the potential within it a constant, and (+/-, depending on your gauge definition) grad(potential) gives your electrical field: thus, no field within an *empty* cavity within a conductive shield. (Can also be shown from Gauss' Law, and integrating around any closed loop which partially goes through the cavity, and partially through the conductor.)
However, if you introduce some non-zero field into the cavity (as, for example, introducting some charge through a wire from the ground into the house), the shield will STILL rearrange its charges to neutralize the potential gradient (field) within the conductor itself. But this rearrangement leaves surface charges on the outer surface, which act as just a "distributed" version of whatever charge is in the cavity.

Your argument is one that undergrads love to use on their professors, but the uniqueness theorems of electrostatics render it null and void. There IS a significant difference between the "inside" and "outside" -- inside the shell, any field line is guaranteed to terminate on a piece of shell; outside the shell, only a tiny subset of field lines have to terminate on the shell -- the others can go to infinity without ever hitting a conductor. (But see Feynman's and Wheeler's arguments about radiation reaction forces for a somewhat more complicated explanation.)

Re:Interesting...

[gardyloo]

Sorry, but the wikipedia article on Faraday cages is mistaken -- read any reputable text on electrostatics and/or Laplace's Equation, or, better yet, just think about (or use, if you have access to one!) a van de Graaf generator. Conducting shell, large charge inside. Tell me that the outside world is shielded from that charge!

Re:Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

For a mathematicians version of this proof, consider this: when you paint your house in laced paint, are you enclosing your house or the rest of the universe? =) The two are equivalent, and hence, if you're transmitting from inside your house, you are *outside* the protected universe, and your signals can't get there.

Re:Interesting...

[Kiryat Malachi]

If the field is produced inside of the conductor, explain to me exactly how it can emit without having a field line crossing through the conductor?

A shield broken by a wire is not a closed conducting surface, by the way, making your example completely outside the question, which is - how does a closed conducting shell know the difference between inside the shell and outside the shell? (Answer: it doesn't, and a *completely* closed conducting shell is a perfect shield for EM radiation).

Re:Interesting...

[MechaStreisand]

You're right about a charge inside a hollow conductive sphere causing a like charge to be distributed on the outside... I now remember that from my physics class. But, consider a microwave oven, as a poster below me mentioned. The perforated shield at the front, and all the metal surrounding it, sure do seem to do a good job at keeping the microwaves in and not out. Now, radio signals in the upper part of this frequency range (100 MHz to 2.4 GHz) are microwaves, so I wonder what will happen to a microwave source surrounded by this paint.

You remembered that a Faraday cage only protects the inside from out, and not vice-versa, and I didn't remember that. So maybe you know more about physics than me. But just because a static charge inside a Faraday cage does one thing, does that necessarily mean that microwave signals will do the same thing? The evidence that I have seen suggests that they will not.

Re:Interesting...

[Sparr0]

Good analogy, except that Maxwell's Demon really does exist.

Re:Interesting...

[utexaspunk]

My kid's got 1.5 arms, you insensitive clod!

Re:Interesting...

[GORby_]

... any radiation produced by the thing inside the conductive shield will get out just fine.

I wish you a lot of fun with your microwave...

Re:Interesting...

[gardyloo]

Let me respond to my own post, since so many people are hyped up about this. I will clarify what I meant (and why I stated that I'm not familiar with wireless technology), and then let people decide.

First, in my defense: Read Griffiths' Electrodynamics, chapters 2 and/or 3. Pay special attention to the points where he states that at "low frequencies"--which for our problem means things below the THz range--a cavity surrounded by a conductor is not influenced by electrical fields from outside, but that the outside world is NOT shielded by ANY net charge within the cavity. Similarly, see http://samizdat.mines.edu/jackson/main.pdf or http://courses.science.fau.edu/~rjordan/busters_22 /answers_1.htm#Ex_9

Now, in regards to people's arguments about microwave ovens and so forth: Yes, of course they're shielded, both with the (usually unbroken) metal casing around the sides and top of the oven, and the mesh or perforated metal plate on the door. And, yes, they produce roughly the same (dipole) radiation patterns as a wireless transmitter of some sort. The fact that the shielding isn't perfect (breaks in it, sometimes not thick enough for the [very low, admittedly] frequency of the radiation emitted) leads to interference, often on wireless networks. If the shielding were better (as, for example, a nice conducting shield all around the thing, of thick enough material that skin depths don't come into play), then there would be NO escaping radiation, just as people say a Faraday cage should work. All of this I agree to. My statement that "any radiation produced by the thing inside the conductive shield will get out just fine" is WRONG, and I'm glad that people jumped on it.
My mistake was using the word ANY. Dipole radiation (such as from an antenna) or quadrupole radiation (crossed antennae, e.g.) and higher moment radiations should all be blocked from escaping from a perfect faraday cage. But monopole radiation, as from a net charge of some type inside the shield WILL escape, there's no getting around that. And I'm pretty sure (correct me on this if I'm wrong; I'm sure people will!) that most, if not all, electrical appliances which draw their power from an external source (i.e. wires, not a battery) will have, at a given moment, a net charge reflecting their states. This is IF these things are not perfectly grounded (as all appliances should be!). If this is the case, then the shield, although effective at knocking down the dipole and higher moment fields, couldn't do anything about monopole fields.

Can someone get a matched pair of walkie talkies, wrap one of them well in aluminum foil, and try this out?

Re:Interesting...

[Kjella]

(...) then go reproduce. If your children are born with n arms, where 1 < n < 3, the EMF was blocked.

<slashdot stereotype>
Yet another unprovable hypothesis. Didn't we have the creationism story today already?
</slashdot stereotype>

Re:Interesting...

[Davoid]

The thing is a WiFi transmitter is a dipole antenna type of device contained within the Faraday cage. Therefore, if the spacing between conductive elements of the cage is shorter than the wavelength of the of the radiation from the WiFi antenna it will block both incoming and outgoing radiation of that wavelength (and longer wavelengths). The signals from the WiFi antenna will just bounce around inside the cage.

However... if the cage has any openings that are larger than the WiFi signals wavelength then signal can get out AND in. For 802.11b the frequency is 2.4GHz which would give it a wavelength of lambda = c/f = 0.125 meters or about 5 inches. Therefore no window can have an opening larger than 5 inches otherwise the signal can get out. Microwave ovens operate at a frequency of about 2.5GHz making their wavelength about 4 and 3/4 inches. The openings in the mesh of the microwave oven door are about 1/8 inch diameter... this makes the mesh a more perfect mirror to 2.5GHz microwaves than the most mirrors for visible light. Visible light (about 400-700 nanometers or 0.000016 to 0.000028 inches) fits through the 0.125 inch diameter holes quite easily so we can see how our slice of pizza is doing.

All of the above assumes a well connected mesh whether it is a house or a microwave oven. They would do just as well to cover the house in chicken wire.

-DU-...etc...

Re:Interesting...

[BarefootClown]

...then go reproduce.

That's probably the most polite way of saying "fuck off" I've ever heard.

Re:Interesting...

[Eric Smith]

Though it isn't really Maxwell's Demon, because there's an external source of energy, the air pressure differential.

Re:Interesting...

[dosboss]

For proof, go stand in front of your microwave oven with the door closed,...

Only if you're in the 'control group' of people who rig the microwave door *open* while it runs.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Re:Interesting...

[plover]

Finally, somebody got the joke!

Bugs the hell out of me when people mod me up "informative" when I'm clearly going just for the laughs. And smileys just seem too overt for me.

Re:Interesting...

[vuud]

I am honestly not sure, but I thought a faraday cage was grounded. That way it could abosorb and then do something with all that energy.

Will just slapping bunch of copper particles onto your house and not grounding them just bounce crap around?
IANAEE (I am not an electrical engineer)

Re:Interesting...

[Sparr0]

but, with the exception of heating the apparatus, it is a perfectly efficient process. all the pressure you put in comes back out.

Re:Interesting...

[Eric Smith]

Sure, the point is that it isn't more than 100% efficient. It's not a perpetual motion machine.

Electric heaters are very nearly 100% efficient too. A tiny amount of the electricity gets converted to RF energy that is likely to escape the room you're trying to heat (unless the room is a Faraday cage). But nobody is particularly impressed with them. Certainly classes of machines can be very nearly 100% efficient, but none can be over 100%.

Or Mobile Phones At All.

[tid242]

Reminds me of my friends' house that has a bunch of wire mesh around his house to hold the stucco onto.

Mobile phones don't work worth shit there, can't imagine they'd work with copper/aluminum paint either...

-tid242

Er... lightning?

[digitect]

This seems also to be an ideal product to increase the chances of your house being struck by lightning, too.

Re:Er... lightning?

[LWATCDR]

Why would it increase your chances at all?
Odds are pretty good that it would be grounded so it would tend to protect you from lightning just like any good Fariday cage would.

Re:Er... lightning?

[Justice8096]

That might be so, but considering that the NEC 2002 (the electrical code used throughout the United States) requires that every metal part of the framework of your house bigger than 10 feet be grounded. If you use metal outlet boxes, this would be done via contact, but for the typical plastic ones, you'd need a seperate grounding wire.
As for the protection from lightning... I'd guess that the resistance due to the size of the fibers, (or capacitance, if the fibers are seperated by suspension in the paint, which is not conductive) would cause heating effects, and this would increase the flammability of the wall - the wall materials are fire resistant to 1 hour usually, but if you paint on the inside of our house, that just means that the fire won't make it to the outside - it'll be in there with you.

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.

Re:What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't paint your windows? What the hell kind of geek are you!

Re:What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[plover]

Simple. Run Linux, then you don't have to worry about your Windows...

/me ducks, then covers! :-)

Re:What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[Agret]

But then there is a big penguin blocking my view of the front yard and I gotta feed it.

Re:What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[74nova]

if youre in oklahoma like i am, many of the windows in trailer parks are already covered with foil. problem solved.

Re:What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[renderhead]

Don't you mean "/me covers ducts"?

Re:What about windows, ducts, etc.?

[tracker1972]

I guess this can cover windows, just makes it tricky to see out of them afterwards. If you nip over to the site you will see they sell a film to cover windows, cuts out 45% of light but that is better than 100%.

Any other holes I guess a mesh of the right size will do the biz in a Faraday cage style.

Tracker.

Durability of the paint...

[aixguru1]

It's not water based, but rather an acrylic latex house paint. Check the website for details. They also have additives to mix with other paints instead of using their base coat paint. Say if you wanted to have a sheilded room painted in a nice mauve with white trim or something...

Choices, choices.

[zenst]

Now do I change the defaults on this linksys, Or just repaint the house. Hmmmmm cost of copper in wiring up the house compared to cost of wireless networking and plastering the entire house in copper, its a tough call. Manual pls.

Confounded...!@#$%

[dassbaba]

En..cryp..tion..? What is this newfangled devilry?!

Stealth Car

[thejuggler]

Does this work against the cops radar guns? If so want to paint my car with this stuff. I'll just have to put a good clear coat over it to keep it from washing off.

Tinfoil hat

[Sonar]

Meh, I will just continue to use my tinfoil hat to protect me. I gave my computer one too, no wireless snoops getting in here.

How to paint your house/ eau de toilette pour WIFI

[zenst]

Ok first get new uber paint, dump load of that tinsel you have left over from xmas into it.

Now, and here is the clever bit. Paint a big RTFM on the side of your house and go read your wireless networking manual. I mean otherwise your the type of person who would just pile up layers of toilet roll in the loo without ever realising you can just flush it.

Better not....

[Creepy Crawler]

Lick the walls... Id get a massive metal rush ;P

But...

[IcEMaN252]

...are you firing laced paint????

Useful and fun!

[ZiZ]

I love this stuff! I use it all the time to paint my tin-foil hats to look more like hair. You know, like in Calvin and Hobbes.

Re:Useful and fun!

[freewqwsdff]

so the houseand the paint and you putthe foils in the paint I use foil and poaintto paint up my houe and foils

Re:Useful and fun!

[Dorothy 86]

C'mon...seriously. Verbing nouns weirds the language. ;-)

Re:Tin foil hats for houses

[Taladar]

It is kind of funny. Selling a wireless replacement for perfectly secure (for home use) wired networks and then selling counter-measures to the insecurity.

A dupe coupled with some silly comments...

[Svartalf]

Considering that Water Based doesn't mean water soluable (Consider that all acrylic latex paints are pretty much all Water Based- which is the likely base for this stuff...) it's kind of silly to say that it's going to increase the copper and aluminum content of your soil as it's largely not going to wash off in the first place...

It will not...

[Krankheit]

However, if your automobile is shaped in such a way (kind of diamond-like), the radar won't return to the cop's device and he won't be able to clock you (the radar will be redirected in a different direction). Since radar is basically bouncing off the vehicle and returning to the device, this paint won't help you.

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?

Re:laced with copper and aluminum fibers

[jridley]

Both copper and aluminum are nontoxic, and the link between aluminum and Alzheimer's has been discounted for years.

What are cherrios? Some kind of cereal made from cherries? I like Cheerios myself.

Actually no...

[Svartalf]

It would be good Tempest hardening for a SOHO or a SME type business where you didn't want the signals getting out of the building. And I can see some locations going for this as part of their Tempest shielding regimen.

Re:Mass Hysteria

[Cracell]

This is just dumb people, maybe to block outside signals to make yours clearer, but otherwise encyrption, duh!!! And ya I need to get some duct tape to, I mean when those terrorists gas us, I need to have the walls sealed by duct tape!!!

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!

Re:Good luck using a cell phone inside!

[xandroid]

Wouldn't it also mean your alarm clock would wake you up with static instead of your favorite radio station?

Re: Old-Fashioned Siding

[Lucas Membrane]

Take a look inside your walls. I'll bet you've got thermal insulation in there that is in those rolls sandwiched between aluminum foil. That will put a pretty good dent in the UHF and up, but the RF will leak out elsewhere.

My kids are retards...

[ForestGrump]

But atleast I don't have to worry about my 802.11b/g network being hijacked.

I live in a house with lead paint.

no, just kidding.
Grump.

Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[goombah99]

This could also create problems too. past studies have noted that cell phone intenisty inside subway carriages can be 100 fold higher due to resonant trapping of the energy. Edge effects could be even higher. Like wise there will be reflections creating nodes in your house. Since the wavelengths are quite long these nodes will be macroscopically large.

Notably, the corners of your house will act like corner cubes maximally reflecting the energy back to the emitter itself. If the emitter happens to be your laptop then you are going to get the majority of the radiation passing through you on each round trip bounce.

as it happens, the wavelength is near the wavelength of your microwave. The microwave is tuned to optimally excite the rotational frequency of aqueaous water. The 2.4 Ghz is slightly off the optimum but You are inhogenous enough that you probably absorb quite well in this region. The rest of the dry materials in the room wont be doing much absorbing. Thus you will become the primary fate of all the radiated energy.

so you lose on two accounts: 1) high field strengths 2) all the energy resonates around till if finds your testicles.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[Green Salad]

Not everyone has testicles...you inconsiderate clod!

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[PatrickThomson]

The microwave is tuned to optimally excite the rotational frequency of aqueaous water.

Er, no it's not. Microwave ovens radiate at about 2.3-2.4 GHz, but the resonant frequency of water which that affects is about 10 GHz. The suboptimal matching means that microwaves penetrate food, rather than flash-boiling the outside layer and leaving the inside raw.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[twiddlingbits]

I thought folks at /. were supposed to know at least a little science. Microwaves send out waves with power on the order of several HUNDRED WATTS (or more). The wireless antenna in your laptop is about a hundred MILLIWATTS. Both signals are at 2.4GHz, the same as a domestic microwave oven. So right there we are talking 1000+ fold less intensity of signal. Then there is the distance factor. Radiation declines as the square of the distance from the source - so if you move from 1 foot to 2 feet from the antenna the intensity falls to 25%. A microwave concentrates its power in a volume about 3-4 square feet in size, your head will be at the edge of something like a 25-30 square foot of volume from your laptop's antenna (assuming you don't place it on your head). In short MOD PARENT DOWN, it's WRONG.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[kaladorn]

CDPD modems used to pop out up to 2 watts when they were having trouble finding a base station. That's a lot more than a few hundred milliwatts. And I watched modems for the Bell Ardis network punch out enough juice to cause notable screen distortion on all nearby systems in a test lab in the same type of situation. Not all cell phones nor all cellular type devices or networks operate up at 2.4 GHz either.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[twiddlingbits]

Off-topic..thread was about the Wireless cards in laptops. Those are not CDPD modems. If 2 watts of signal is distoring your CRT screens you got a heck of a shielding problem somewhere or a lot more than 2 watts. Probably both.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[AJWM]

Not everyone has testicles...you inconsiderate clod!

Maybe so, but on average everybody has one.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[Lexor]

> In short MOD PARENT DOWN, it's WRONG

Quit your yammering. Of course microwaves create more microwave energy, otherwise there'd be a lineup of cooked laps in the emergency wards.

Microwaves, particularly at the 2.4 ghz range, are being studied more and more often now. Don't be surprised if they're conclusively found to be dangerous to living tissue regardless of source signal strength.

Painting your home or office with microwave-reflecting paint sounds like a stupid idea to me, but then again so does using a WiFi network.

Perhaps it's a good time to let research catch-up to product announcements.

Re:Radiation in a reflective cavity.

[kaladorn]

You could get the CDPD modems as wireless cards. The non-wireless card car versions could kick out 25 watts or more IIRC. They gave really decent coverage ranges in Red Deer (fairly flat) with only 3 towers as a result.

Re:This is slashdot

[EEBaum]

Hypothetically, assume that said friends might exist.

Call?

The real use

[Nichotin]

Signals always find some way to escape. For security I'd use cabled networking.
My point anyway was, that the only reason I would buy this is to escape interference.

I was on that fishing boat!

[SlimFastForYou]

Your father's scalding water scared all the fish away, you insensitive clod!

Re:Er... lightning? Exponentially???

[Lucas Membrane]

WRONG! Probabilities can't increase exponentially except in a narrow range in which they are small. After all, an upper bound on the probability of anything is 1.0. Exponentially increasing functions don't have any upper bound. They increase faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and eventually increase like really fast, faster than anything you can imagine. There is no limit to how fast they increase. There is no limit to how fast their rate of increase increases. There is no limit to how fast the rate of increase of their rate of increase increases. Etc ... Take three derivatives and call me in the morning.

Only works against low-end enemies

[Animats]

Conductive surfaces don't block RF much unless they're grounded. Wire mesh is effective if the joints are electrically bonded, which nobody does in ordinary construction. Otherwise, it's useless.

Anybody who has been involved with RF-tight enclosures or rooms will realize this. You need solid metal all the way around, with RF-tight gaskets at openings.

If you can receive any radio signals inside your "shielded room", it's not shielded.

Re:Only works against low-end enemies

[Engineer Andy]

electrical bonding is done in all steel reinforcement in the concrete for about 3m around a swimming pool.

In a prison I was involved in the design of, there was some discussion (subsequently dismissed) of introducing a "leaky wire" into the reinforcement to generate noise to prevent inmates using phones to plan crimes. The thing that scuttled it was the worry that the guards might need to use their own phones to call for help if their radios failed them

Re:wow...Jiffy-pop = DUPE!

[databyss]

They did that years ago on this documentary called "Real Genius".

It was all about the stress of college or something....

Hmm hmm

[IdahoEv]

I thought it went to the tune of "Hmm hmm hmm hmm" by the Crash Test Dummies?!?!

They sell a Wi-Fi Finder...

[qualico]

Wi-Fi Finder Plus (KEN201)
$36.95
Find wireless networks instantly. Just press a button and the Kensington Wi-Fi Finder lets you know if your location is "hot" instantly. Learn more

[/snip]

So I'd like to see how biased their Wi-Fi Finder is with their paint.

Kinda like puttin the ol' Humidifier and De-Humidifier in the same room.
But if your my Humidifier, then lets give ya break on the De-Humidifying.

(shameless advertising /. overlords. ;)

stupid

[Exter-C]

at the end of the day if you really want security use a piece of fibre or stp and make sure you can see the cable from point to point so you know there are no taps.. then turn your computers off..

What about ...

[DaneelGiskard]

... radio? television? mobile phones? pagers?

That's a pretty broad frequency spectrum which they are messing with ...

Re:Tin foil hats for houses

[jnik]

> First they say that "radio waves find leaks".
Man, they got Gooch's Law wrong. That's supposed to be "RF gotta go somewhere."

No I have a better Idea.

[JollyFinn]

Firstly install a wifi node called linksys. Let them get to the "internet" through it, quite freely.
Next step is to put a linux machine between that and internet in a way that it doesn't look to outside word as anything, it forwards packets to internet gateway as it would of been from the wifi directly and same thing counter clockwise. With few exceptions. It creates packets that look that they come from internet site X running an assault to wardriver. Pick IP address that is assigned to goverment for such operation. [Without DNS name for the IP address that the wardriver thinks its assault target.] Here's the operation of the script If wardriver uses windows, own his machine. Next thing to do is uppload his machines, with screen shots of word and all the MS office applications. Of course those applications in middle of editing a "Lemon party" image or something else. Replace all the operating system basic applications with a application that just shows an image of said application, in the menu. Make his start up sound "I'm looking for Gay porn" and start up image and back ground a Lemon party. Best possibility is replace Explorer.exe or what ever the os GUI startup is called these days with your own funny program, that does interesting things in his machine. Like putting stuff out of his speakers that he doesn't wan't doesn't work anything like its supposed to, while giving him the image that its still the standard windows prompt. Also replace command.com with something similar, so that if he goes to text mode he will have strange errors, like it tells that component Y inside his computer is broken and needs to be replaced... Of course this assault in case he logs it, came from goverment IP address X. And definitely there is NO machine in between the Wifiaccesspoint and your ADSL modem in his eyes. You could make some timing thing in the assault like, its results will get activated next time he boots his machine or something similar, so that he wouldn't think its from you.
Next thing is replicate the setup 5 times in your neightbourhood in other corners. And "service provider" should block him if he runs port scan or something similar, and warn him about illegal actions he's doing and send him a message that goverment has been notified of his actions.
Oh yes. Wardriving is fun. Do it around here ;)

method for securing in-office only 802.11?

[rich42]

I'm always having problems with users setting up their own access points on my company's network (for some reason it's always mac users).

"hey Rich - I plugged my access point into the network 2 weeks ago - figured I'd let you know... secured it... uh? I think I did..."

sounds like this paint might be a good solution...

the next user who plugs their "Airport" into my network will find their car with a fresh coat of it.

Um... windows?

[WoTG]

I don't suppose they expect people to paint over their windows! So... this tin-foil coating (almost literally) isn't going to be perfect.

Bah! Encryption is the only way to go anyway. What happens when you have people, say, come inside your house? Never mind the inconvenience of no cell-phones.

I guess there are some niches for this product...somewhere.

Downsides?

[macdaddy]

Oh, you mean that ubber-fancy geek cordless landline telephone you have no longer works outside the home? That's ok. Geeks don't get much sun anyways.

Oh darn. You 800 and 1900Mhz CDMA cell phones no longer work inside? Guess you'll have to go outside. Whoops. There's that sun vs geek factor again.

Gee, your pager doesn't work inside either? Your employer wouldn't require you to wear one, would they?

Having trouble with your garage door opener? Guess you'll just have to get out of the car and push the button yourself.

Having trouble getting your favorite radio station on your home stereo? Guess you'd better start stringing coax through the roof for a new antenna. (This brings up an interesting question. Since most home-use APs use an omni-directional antenna, do you have to also have to coat your roof in something prior to shingling it? Interesting question.)

Lets see. What else won't work. Hmm, your emergency weather radio. Your police/fire scanner. Your CB. Your HAM radio. Your Satellite Radio (since it broadcasts in the S band at 2.3Ghz)

What else am I missing? I'm sure this paint has it's applications. It's not very useful for the average home owner but I imagine a collector of tin foil beenies would love to buy a couple dozen gallons.

Re:Tin foil hats for houses

[zmollusc]

I think the tv would work fine if, like me, you mount your tv aerial on the OUTSIDE of your house.

Brains! Brains! Brains!

[dbIII]

Or are we all disoriented and stricken with alzheimers due to the aluminum

Here's an interesting bit of trivia about the early alzheimers research: it compared fresh brains from a control group with brains of sufferers that had been preserved in an aluminium sulphate solution. For years people were trying to work out how we could possibly metabolise aluminum (it take serious chemicals, heat and electricity to extract it from alumina) until someone took a look at the orginal study and tracked down the contaminant.

The more stupid the mistake the less people want to admit it - it took many years before aluminium was ruled out as a contaminant, but since the aluminium link had been in the newspapers for years we are stuck with another urban myth (just like the wartime carrot nightsight myth - you can't magically boost you night vision with carrots (Mawson didn't get better vision fron a near lethal dose of vitamin A), but it was the excuse to avoid admitting that radar existed in WWII).

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:Brains! Brains! Brains!

[NichG]

Slightly offtopic, but I have a story from my experience of playing around with electrolysis and driveway cleaning compounds in my youth...

A solution of 6M HCl will slowly acquire copper ions when copper wires are used to electrolyse it. I have a suspicion this might be from chlorine formed at the anode reacting with the copper, but I don't know for sure. You get a green liquid, though I don't know whether its just Cu(1+) or if its some complex ion. Cu(2+) gives a blue liquid, I think. I may have those backward though, its been awhile.

Anyways, the resulting mix seems to eat through alumina with no problem, which was fun to demonstrate using aluminum foil to produce hydrogen gas. The 6M HCl alone won't get through the alumina. I don't think I ever found out exactly how that worked (you get what looks like copper metal in the resulting mush, but that could just be competition between CuCl and HCl in reacting with the aluminum metal beneath.) Any inorganic chemists here who want to hazard a guess?

Surely...

[jbartone]

A handgun would work better for when you find those no-life nerd wardrivers?

aDur

[Zen Punk]

They're probably worried about it interfering with medical equipment. When you're in a hospital, you don't exactly need to call 911, now do you?

Re:aDur

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Then use this RF blocking paint to paint the medical equipment. They surcharge the payphones in the hospitals because people aren't allowed to use cellphones in there.

Instead, I go outside on the sidewalk, near a treatment room window, and use my phone there. Less than 10 feet from the equipment. In the lobby, I'd be more than 30 feet from the equipment.

Re:aDur

[hesiod]

> They're probably worried about it interfering with medical equipment

Yes & no, depending what you consider "medical equipment." Cell phones won't really interfere with many machines in a hospital. The real problem (at least where I work) lies in wireless devices like patient telemetry -- vitals sensors hooked up to a patient while they walk around the halls which transmits that data and is picked up by wireless antennas in the ceiling. We had to get rid of our wireless 900Mhz phones because of that (and the fact that a radio scanner can pick up the conversations -- big HIPAA issue).

> When you're in a hospital, you don't exactly need to call 911, now do you?

Unless you need to call the police over a belligerent patient. It happens.

Re:latex paint is water based

[Warshadow]

latex paint is water based, and it's used outdoors...

Exactly. Water Based does not mean Water SOLUBLE.

security

[mysterious_mark]

Sounds cool, should replace my current WIFI security scheme which consist of a 12 guage loaded with rock salt. Get off my network you ding darn kids! M

Re:Er... lightning? Exponentially???

[Sparr0]

the exponent could be 1 :)

Re:Stop the presses-Impossible!!

[dasunt]

Would that happen to be the same encryption that cable, satellite and content provider pirates brag about cracking, no matter how much it changes? Or did you mean some other "never to be broken" encryption?*

Lets see:

• Satellite TV decryption: Decryption keys given out to millions of subscribers.
• Cable TV 'decryption': Tends to be a filter on the input.
• Content decryption: Depends on the content. Wasn't CSS broken because of Drink or Die reverse engineered a DVD player? Ne'ermind that CSS was weak 40bit encryption scheme. (Btw, notice the theme that having millions of decoders out there with the decryption key may be a problem?) Adobe's ebook encryption had several weaknesses making it vulnerable to attack.

So, what do we have? Weak security schemes that involve 'security through obscurity'. Kind of like setting up a wireless network and hoping that nobody finds it. :)

Now, lets look at wireless encryption:

• WEP: Original version had several weaknesses, a newer version 'strong-WEP' avoids 'weak packets' and has, AFAIK, not been broken.
• IPSEC: The 'heavy hitter' of ip encryption, works well on wireless or wired networks, optional for IP4, part of IP6, and has never been broken.

Yes, some encryption sucks. We know that. Some 'encryption' turns out to be slightly more than access control -- encryption on certain Microsoft formats used to be able to be broken by just erasing the password field in the document! Some encryption is a more obfucated version of ROTn.

That doesn't make all encryption schemes worthless.

Some encryption schemes have been peer-reviewed for many, many years without flaws being found. Short of a "Sneakers"-style mathmatical breakthrough, its doubtful that some of these schemes will ever be broken. Others may be vulnerable to the sheer brute force that a quantum computer may do. A good OTP systems using a good scheme to collect its random numbers will never be breakable without a pad.

Currently, there are encryption schemes which are for all practical purposes, unbreakable. Want to snoop in on a SSH session? You better be willing to compromise a computer on one end, or torture someone for information. Want to feed information from an IPSEC-protected wireless network? Break into one of the machines or break out the bamboo splints.

*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.

insulated walls

[pair-a-noyd]

My dad insulated the walls of his garage with Styrofoam with a foil backing. His 900mhz phone doesn't work in the garage now.
He tried running a wire from inside the garage to outside of the garage thinking it may carry the signal, but that didn't work very well.
He tried moving the base station to the upstairs of the house but the sheet metal roof blocked it from that angle too.

MOST new homes are now constructed (around here) with that foil backed styrofoam. Seeing the trouble it made with a 900mhz phone, I would think it cause just as much trouble for other signals. It's solid so I would think no wavelength should be able to penetrate it except by sheer brute force, IE a "hot" signal.

Re:Stop the presses-Impossible!!

[Synbiosis]

There's also the fact that merely having WEP, as weak as it is, will drive off every single wardriver on the planet.

I doubt there are very many wardrivers who will stop and crack the encryption if they find an encrypted network.

FM Radio!

[rxmd]

Say goodbye to FM radio stations at 100+x MHz, too.

Re:Stop the presses-Impossible!!

[FireFury03]

Some encryption schemes have been peer-reviewed for many, many years without flaws being found. Short of a "Sneakers"-style mathmatical breakthrough, its doubtful that some of these schemes will ever be broken.

This is wrong - chances are that eventually computers will be powerful enough to brute force it. However, you can choose an encryption algorithm/key length by deciding:

1. Is the data useful by the time we can decrypt it? (probably no for most people if it takes more than a few months to decrypt).
2. Is the data worth more than it would cost to decrypt it in a short amount of time (if the data is worth $10 million, but the computing power to crack the encryption will cost you $20 million it's obviously not worth bothering).

So most encryption schemes will likely be broken eventually, but for most people that's probably not an issue since by the time it's broken the data is worthless (e.g. it nolonger applies, or is common knowledge by that time).

(none of the above applies to OTP algorithms, but they have their own problems, such as how do you transmit a massive pad to a remote client securely? If you transmit the pad via a traditional encryption scheme then the pad (and hence the data is is encrypting) is again vulnerable).

one big microwave oven?

[eklem]

If this paint works, and with enough wi-fi equipment in the house: Won't this paint just turn the house into one big microwave oven? I'll stick with the more regular security options described in the user manual.

You're getting things mixed up

[DABANSHEE]

You are assuming a faraday cage works like co-ax shielding.

Yes signal leakage does come out of co-ax, but a faraday cage does definitly shield bi-directionally, they are 2 different things with different properties.

Re:Er... lightning? Exponentially???

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

let us say that the chance of your home getting struck by lightning is 2% (Thats really, high, but hey).

Let us pretend that the home becomes 4% likely to be struck by lightning after being painted.

Looks like it squared.

Ah! But a percent is a fraction...

so: 0.02^x = 0.04.

x = 2*ln(5)/ln(50) =~ 0.822816

A function can vary at any rate. The probability of an event can vary by any of infinite number of rates, and in general the rate at which any one particular event occuring RIGHT NOW would be essentially chaotic due to all the variables in question (e.g., the chance of your computer exploding at THIS INSTANT depends on the temperature, the humidity, if it is on, the proximity of your glass of orange juice, etc) -- thus usually requiring a piecewise function. Hence, the rate the probability of 'X' happening in 'Y' seconds can be exponential from time 'a' to 'b', linear from b to c, etc.

The function can't increase exponentially forever; but he only referred to two points on the curve.

fun stuff. As to the 3rd derivative of an exponential function... d(d(y^x,x,x) = y^x*ln(y))^2 = The rate of change of the rate of change of the rate of change in probability, e.g. the 4th derivative of a probability curve. ;~)

The integral of the curve would have more meaning ;~)

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:Useless for general population.

[advocate_one]

Don't knock it... something like that would be ideal for coating the insides of tents etc. to quickly create "secure" processing areas. And if anybody's wondering about patenting that idea... forget it... it's already patented. My brother holds a patent for doing that very same thing with his own special goop...

Yet another Windows Security Hole

[Tavor]

This time a bit more litterally. No one wants to paint over their transparent light-holes!

Re:Yet another Windows Security Hole

[jack_call]

why not? it could replace the black plastic bags I'm using to seal it now. No background light, no calls on the damn cell phone AND better security.

Re:Yet another Windows Security Hole

[jthayden]

You could use crystal. Get a high enough lead content it'll mess with the signal. Hell, if Superman can't see through it, it'll stop wardrivers.

Re:Yet another Windows Security Hole

[the MaD HuNGaRIaN]

Actually, the same company sells a window film as well.

This is why I wrapped

[EvilNutSack]

my house in tin foil.

Re:I call BS on this.

[Travoltus]

Perhaps the brass listened to his suggestions and saw them to be credible. It does happen.

The part that would be BS is if he said his dad didn't get a medal or promotion for this.

This is all well and good, however...

[Lyntux]

This can have a useful application. You paint the outside walls of your appartment with the stuff and you don't have to worry about interferance with your dozens of neighbor's WiFi systems.

health implications

[carldot67]

Lead (as in Pb) in paint is bad h'mkay.
We know that now after years of using
it in our schools.

Asbestos is bad too. After years of
using it in our, erm, other schools.

As it happens too much Cu and/or Al
is not entirely healthy either. Especially
this idea of "fibers". Painting an entire
house also sounds a bit of an extreme
measure compared to running nessus and
typing:

http://house_router/config?wep128=enabled

Eco-friendly alternative

[slashusrslashbin]

Not sure how effective this is at the frequencies we are talking about, but this one uses a safe nickel pigment, and is entirely odourless and solvent free: ECOS EMR radiation shielding paint.

Another solution... a WIRE

[L.Bob.Rife]

So... paint one or two rooms, and keep both computer and wireless router within that room to make it work. ?

Am I missing something on how useful this is? Doesnt it kinda defeat the entire purpose of wireless if you don't let the signal travel anywhere except within a small room?

Re:Another solution... a WIRE

[xasper8]

Or you could paint just the interior side of the external walls... that way you can enjoy wi-fi in all the rooms of your house/apt.

Only because it is not encryption....

[Kjella]

Would that happen to be the same encryption that cable, satellite and content provider pirates brag about cracking, no matter how much it changes? Or did you mean some other "never to be broken" encryption?

...it is security by obscurity through encryption. In all the examples you mention the end-user has the decryption key. They are not cracking the encryption, they're simply making the decryption key available in a more accessible (non-DRM) and copyable format.

Encryption is designed to secure communication between two trusted parties, and it does that well. What you refer to are the attempts to leave a trusted piece of hardware in an untrusted location (your home). Try as they might, it is nearly impossible. The military has certainly tried, but tamper-proof hardware is neither cheap nor easy. Not exactly what you'd find at Walmart.

Kjella

Aluminum siding has same effect

[Peter Simpson]

I'm thinking this is an opportunistic product that is overpriced and, upon application, will give less than the desired results. Wrapping your house in tinfoil would probably be more appropriate.

Think windows, doors, and roof.

Re:Stop the presses-Impossible!!-Paint ball.

[dasunt]

Well in the *context* of the story we have encryption schemes that might be broken at any time. While we have a physical paint that stops the waves from getting out (noting that the farady cage predates fancy encryption). And will continue to do so as long as it's maintained.*

1. I doubt the paint is 100% effective.
2. Even assuming that the paint is 100% effective, most houses have unpainted openings.
3. Assuming it does work 100%, you've killed your cellphone, pager, higher FM bands, broadcast TV channels 7-13 and all of UHF[1], and satellite radio.[2]

[1] UHF includes HDTV broadcasts.
[2] On the plus side, if your microwave is faulty, you stopped irridating the neighborhood kids.

Re:Dupe of URL

[mswope]

(sung to tune of "Duke of Earl")

Dupe, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL,
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL,
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL,
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL....

Attn: CowboyNeal

[fataugie]

only recommended for people who want more copper and aluminum in the soil surrounding their house.

Because we all know that the rest of us get Copper and Aluminumumm from the all giving Metal Tree that grows in the remote parts of the country. It would be silly to think it comes out of the ground.

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.

Even better solution...

[bryan1945]

Lead paint! Blocks out unwanted wardriving, radio signals, pesky UHF and VHF signals, all cellular, and the sporadic beeper. As an added bonus, children love the taste!

(Legaleese- you do this, you dumb)

Will people use this???

[jridley]

How many people care enough about this to repaint their house with pretty darn expensive paint, but don't care enough to actually turn on the encryption or MAC filtering in their WAPs?
For what that paint probably costs, you could hire someone to come lock down your network.

yeah, and 20 years from now

[sl4shd0rk]

people will be scraping this shit off their houses and piling the landfills full of it cuz their 3 years olds find it tastes like breast milk.

Water-based paints

[puhuri]

that adding metals to make your own paint mix is either illegal

Earlier tin was used in antifouling paints to prevent marine growth in boat bottoms. Later it was replaced with copper but nowadays in Scandinavia it is also prohibited (from 2004), at least for leasure boaters because of environmental reasons. The paints will prevent marine growth also near boats and can be a severe hazard by marinas. Using brush few times a season serves the same thing.

Many water-based latex paints are sold as environmentaly friendly. However, they may have larger emissions on hazardious substances than oil- or solvent-based paints.

Stupid idea

[MrArmyAnt]

Thats the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Most people won't have a clue that you can steal wireless, much less buy a paint. I also like using My network up to a mile away, you just have to have it secure :) However, I would like that lisence plate paint that hides it from cameras. Anyone kow what I am talking aboput or what its called?

~T
http://www.modlife.net/

Re:Stop the presses-Impossible!!

[Nagoff]

"physics doesn't break encryption. Mathmatics does."

Erm, no actually. The question of what is computable with which resources is a question for physics. It may well turn out that some problems, e.g. Factoring semi-primes, are NP within classical physics, but P within quantum mechanics. AFAIK no-ones done a lot of work on computational complexity within field theory or m-branes, although its a few years since I left the field myself so someone else might be able to add more.

Nagoff

Already been covered

[danger_boy_13]

As much as I hate G4TechTV now, Kevin Rose did a segment about this paint about 1-1.5 months ago.

They been huffin to much of their own product

[MadBurner]

put it on the outside of your house and you not only poison the soil but you cant carry your cordless phone outside. put it on the inside and you cant carry your cordless phone from room to room. I guess the world wants a ham on every table, two cars in every garage and a cordless phone in every room. Wait a minute, wont that limit our wi-fi to inner room only?

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?

And now in these exciting designer colors!

[Zhe Mappel]

Brilliant Beige
Tin Treat
Aluminum-num-num!
Pretty Good PVC
"Root" Beer

This should be interesting

[PacketScan]

I just painted my house with this crap and now i can't even use my cell phone in my own house. OH and Forget FM/AM that crap aint happening.

2cents.

Re:maybe I'm naive...

[QMO]

I don't worry about read access to my home LAN, for apparenlty the same reasons as you. There's nothing sensitive on it that's not encrypted anyway.

I worry about WRITE access.

Pollution issue

[kurt555gs]

There are very strict discharge limits for copper in both wastewater and stormwater systems.

Water based paint with copper strands seem to me an invitation for disaster. Copper is difficult and very expensive to remove from a wastewater stream, and spillage on the ground may cause very high levels of ground, and groundwater contamination.

Personally I think the company making this may not have looked into all the environmental thay could cause.

I am thinking some one should forward the article to the US EPA enforcement division to see if there really is a pollution disaster waiting to happen.

Re:Pollution issue

[snarkasaurus]

Dude, what do you think ordinary latex paint is made of? The tinting agents are all metals, primarily titanium.

These guys are adding aluminum and copper strands, which will take many, many years to break down in the soil. Go to an old shooting range some time, you can find copper jacketed ammunition from pre-WWI that's still 100% intact.

Then there's this breakthrough device called a drop sheet...

How about lead paints

[jakupovic]

I know this might be a little off topic but on the subject of paint laced with metals ...

Did people use lead paint to shield from radiation. Most of the older houses in the states have had many layers of lead paint, and I was wondering whether this would protect from radiation.

It also comes in dry form

[gwjc]

>...there are downsides to this.
> Since it's a water-based paint

They reviewed this product on Tech TV; it also comes in a dry form that can be mixed with whatever paint base you like. Regardless, it didn't seem very practical given the price.

Re:I call BS on this.

[aardwolf204]

major, general, i dont know what he was havent heard the story in a while, i didnt think that was the point. i dont remember him getting any kind of promotion or medal for it.

Judging by how many

[g0bshiTe]

wifi networks I have stumbled on in my area, and the staggering number that use no encryption at all, I don't think this will be a viable solution to the masses who either haven't RTFM, or did and are afraid to ask questions or research what they don't understand.

While this paint would reduce or even stop someone from plundering a wifi network, if those people would take time and enable the current WEP or whatever auth they have on their firmware it would harden their system that much more.

It's easy to sit outside a house in a parked car for 5 mins to check email or quik recon, but I doubt if anyone would spend time needed parked outside to break into a WEP enabled network.

*shrug*

[racerxroot]

Why don't people just secure their wireless networks? It isn't impossible... it just takes *gasp* time!

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...

Simpsons

[Ann Coulter]

All the lead paint can block out the radiation.

WiMax?

[flu1d]

Why would you advertise blocking WiMax as a good idea? What happens when my friendly *COUGH* *Evil!* Telco installs WiMax in my neighborhood and the previous owner of my house painted it with this stuff. On top of that does anyone remember lead based paint?

Through the wall RADAR

[krgallagher]

I wonder if this will block Through the wall RADAR.

that's got to be awesome to breathe

[AssFace]

aluminum spray? excellent! I hear that stuff is great for your body :)

new breakthrough in preventing soil contamination!

[snarkasaurus]

Its called a DROP SHEET. You put it on the ground when you paint and it collects all the drips. And you know, it can be used to collect up all the peeling paint when you scrape it off in five or ten years.

Jeasus! Can't you wankers get over the envirocrap for even one second?

Oh Oliver!

[Hoi Polloi]

Climbing the phone pole worked on Green Acres.

Not a problem for the average slashdotter...

[DigitalCrackPipe]

...only recommended for people who want more copper and aluminum in the soil surrounding their house

Not a problem for the average slashdotter who is living in the parent's basement - the paint works exactly as designed!

Fibres?!

[AstroSurf]

Copper and aluminum have _fibres_?! Who knew?

I leave my WiFi unprotected ...

[b0s0z0ku]

with the SSID NICE_GUY because I *want* people to be able to surf the 'net from the street. If I'm in a strange town with a laptop, I sometimes find the ability to check my mail useful; I'm just returning the favor. -b.

Re:maybe I'm naive...

[conran]

...until some 17 year old punk gets hold of some naked pictures of your husband/wife ;)

Paint your room instead

[Hoi Polloi]

Why paint the whole house? Just paint the walls of the room you have your computer in.

I wonder if the paint sheds metal fibers over time and if they can wreak havoc with electrical equipment as they float around.

Another Amazing Tech Breakthrough!

[snarkasaurus]

Another new breakthrough for painters, besides the drop sheet, is the amazing painter's spray mask. You put it on your head and it actually filters the air for you!

You want to breath some scary shit, try high end car paint some time. You have to wear a full coverage bunny suit with remote air supply because it can go in through your skin and eyes, not just your lungs. It contains one of the most dangerous metals in the periodic table.

Oddly this is considered more enviro-friendly than nitrocellulose laquer by the EPA. If they didn't mandate its use nobody would touch it with a barge pole.

Re:Another Amazing Tech Breakthrough!

[AssFace]

They've got masks now! No way! Next thing you know, we'll land a man on the moon.

What is in the car paint that is so bad - and what is the method of delivery through the skin? Sounds like DMSO or a similar action - but what is the dangerous metal?

And why do they use said paint?

From the sounds of it, they should use it in wartime - "Hey no problem guys, they are only using paintball guns - we are set. Man my skin itches."

Re:Another Amazing Tech Breakthrough!

[arkane1234]

I don't know where you shop, but where I shop ammunition is cheaper than car paint :)

Tinfoil works, too

[technoCon]

I've found that a layer of reynolds aluminum foil (shiny side out) on all the walls, and over the windows works fairly well. Soldering the edges together put a lot of lead fumes in the air, but I ignored that.

Also, when I go outside, if i wear a hat made of tinfoil, it keeps the wardrivers out of my head. However, it doesn't stop the voices that tell me to kill.

That is so funny.

[gurps_npc]

So let me get this straight.

The author of this book was the morons and fools that make NO attempt at all for security, not even changing the default password, to go and buy special paint and use it on their house?

There is no such thing as "marauding wardrivers." There are a bunch of people, some of home are ethical, but many of whom are not, who take advantage of the incompetent people that leave their wireless connection entirely unguarded.

Aluminum Foil ...

[ConsciousObjector]

To keep the CIA out. Seriously. At first glance this seems as ridiculous as using duct tape to protect your home from a CBW attack.

On another note, does the paint come in seafoam?

Ya sure ya want to do that?

[dazedNconfuzed]

Scared of WiFi snoops to turn your house into a Faraday cage? Ya sure?

No FM/AM radio in the house.
No broadcast TV (not everyone has cable, guys).
No stepping outside while on the cordless phone.
No using your WiFi-enabled laptop on the back porch.
No cell phone reception inside.
No dedicated weather radio.
No self-setting "atomic" clock.
No pager.

Great.

I'd rather do this...

[The Wooden Badger]

I'd rather put copper and aluminum sheet inside the street facing exterior walls. It's more of a shield and it doesn't come off into the soil (and then groundwater). Of course it also is a lot of fun when there is a short in your house wiring. Boo-ya!

Re:maybe I'm naive...

[fishbowl]

"Maybe I'm naive, but why should I care about preventing people from accessing my home wlan?"

Some people experience significant abuse, ranging from spent bandwidth to host exploits. There is also the risk of you being implicated as an accessory to a crime if someone is using your network to distribute k*dd*e p*rn or operate a t*rr*r*st operation.

It also may be a violation of your service agreement with your ISP to allow others to connect.

Or maybe you just want to be in control of who connects to your system. Plenty of people setup their wlan so that the SSID is the phone number to call, or else proxy a web page to be a signup system, like hotels and coffee shops do.

There is a lot to be said for wide-open systems, but they can be targets for abuse.

Re:maybe I'm naive...

[QMO]

to repeat:
There's nothing sensitive on it

Oooh, a good use for this:

[Zenmonkeycat]

I can paint my motorcycle helmet with this stuff, and totally protect my brain against Illuminati mind-control beams coming from geosynchonous orbit over my house.

Unless, of course, they work at higher frequencies than 5 GHz, which isn't beyond the capabilites of the all-powerful leader of the Illuminati, a man we know as "Associate Deputy Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey Shane."

Just use the tried and true.

[keithww]

ROT 13 works for me, but I have had some trouble with encrypting the same information an even number of times.

More importantly, is that actually bad?

[iamlucky13]

Is aluminum and copper in the soil actually a bad thing? I thought those metals just passed right through us. After all, we do use aluminum foil on our food and we move drinking water through copper pipes. Aluminum is fairly reactive and easily forms aluminum oxide, which, if I remember correctly, is a noteworthy portion of ordinary clay. Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

I know they're looking to improve convenience, but I think someone should say one more time for the late arrivals: If you're really worried about network security, don't use wireless.

My house is already a Faraday cage...

[MykePagan]

...and I can still access my wifi through the walls. My house was built in the late 1940's and has steel lath walls. I've dulled carbide blades on a reciprocating saw just trying to cut holes to get at pipes. The plaster is backed by expanded steel mesh with holes about the same pitch as the holes on the window of a microwave oven. Usable wifi signals still manage to find a way out of the house.

If you hate wardrivers so much, why not use WEP or WPA and not broadcast your SSID? Seems like a lot less hassle than repainting the house.

Old Fashioned Technique

[IBeatUpNerds]

To hell with the fancy paints. Here's my secret: 1) Install security camera overlooking the street 2) Wait for nerds to pull up when they discover my network 3) Grab my baseball bat 4) Run outside and pound them to a pulp Works every time.

Microwaves are good for you!

[kaladorn]

Or perhaps not.

But I seem to recall that in the early days here in Canada, microwave techs would check waveguide alignments by eyeball and of course then wonder after a while why they were having trouble with one eye and having to use the other... since they didn't turn the towers right off IIRC. On board some of the military ships, I've heard of fire control systems cooking seagulls at close enough ranges.

Yes, and so the idea of the 'step up the power to reach out' (where your 300 mW device kicks up to 2W if it can't get out... or at least that's what it was for CDPD modems, probably lesser for cell phones) is just lovely. Subways and other places must just be little radiation trap nodes.

And now people want to turn their houses into this. Of course, it might help keep out everyone else's emissions, so maybe the net result isn't so bad.

Of course, on the third hand (having probably used up the other two already), you might have issues with metal flake in the paint (anyone remember some of the asbestos issues?) over the long term.

Ah, life is just a series of choices between poisons... :)

Whatever you do, don't use your head!

[Sierpinski]

God forbid we should actually implement some security on our wireless devices. Using a WEP protocol must be so unbelievably hard to do since most residential hotspots are wide open...

Paint my house with some material that will probably give me a tumor in 3 years, or use good sense and install security... a trick question perhaps?

Next thing we'll hear about is a filter for cordless phones to bleep out every number that we say. (I still use a landline for sensitive issues.)

Re:MOD parent funny

[Sancho]

Ironic? No, more along the lines of, "How easy is it to answer this question?"