Wi-Fi Fingerprints -- the End of MAC Spoofing?

judgecorp writes, "Wireless devices can be identified by variations in their radio signaling, known as their 'transceiverprint,' according to research reported in Techworld. The Canadian researcher, Jeyanthi Hall, related the prints to MAC addresses and got a positive ID for devices connecting to a Wi-Fi network, claiming 95% success with no false positives. Once they work out how to do this without a dedicated signal analyzer and neural network processing, it's the end of MAC spoofing on wireless networks."

Comments

Re:the end of wireless mac spoofing?! no way

[ergo98]

Anyone seriously into wireless security / hacking probably has 20+ wireless cards. It is common knowledge that a wireless card can be identified by its traffic, so why not just buy one of each vendor's cards and use the relevent one during each hack?

If you RTFA, you would have seen that manufacturing variations yield differences even among the exact make and model -- e.g. that minor circuitry, amplifiers and antenna variations differences yield a unique signature.

Re:Just spoof the fingerprint

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Cuz you likely can't. To do so would require a microscope on alot of WiFi cards and even then it you likely won't come close enough. The fingerprint is possible because of minor variations in the signal that is caused by variations in the caps and resistors used. You don't really think they can create a 0% tolerance cap do you?? The tolerances on caps and resistors can be 0.05%...that is still not 0%. A 0% tolerance cap or resistor is not possible. Spoofing a RF fingerprint is practically impossible with today's technology.