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Wi-Fi Hack Aids Boarding Parties
Kage-Yojimbo writes with a link to the site Strategy Page. There, they're reporting on a military adaptation of civilian wi-fi equipment to use in boarding operations on the high seas. Modifications to normal off-the-shelf gear can result in a range of over 700 meters, allowing information to be passed through on-shore internet connections. "The main reason for all this was to speed up the transmission of passport photos and other personal data back to the ship, so that it could be run through databases to check for terrorists or criminals. This wi-fi hack cut several hours off the time required to check documents. The Expanded Maritime Interception Operations (EIMO) wireless system was developed last year, to provide several kilometers of range to the original wi-fi gear (which has been in use for over three years). Each pair of wi-fi units costs about $1400 to construct, using common parts to add more powerful antennae to standard 802.11g wi-fi equipment."
Seems a lot for a Pringles can (http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448)
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Where's the news? The limitations on WiFi range are hardly inherent in the technological architecture. It's that there are limits to the permitted broadcast power in civilian bands without a license.
It would be fairly trivial to get a heck of a lot more range out of wifi by just boosting the transmitter. This is neither surprising nor interesting.
This is news for people who aren't nerds. Stuff that doesn't matter.
this: http://www.netscum.com/~clapp/wireless.html is being referenced.
Except theirs is modified with a high-powered, ultra-top secret Pringles can...
Only pirates are allowed to take part in "boarding operations on the high seas".
The Military can, however, "liberate" vessels.
Are they going to require all commercial vessels to have these onboard and broadcasting? If so, it should be amusing when some media intercepts a list of congressmen, lobbyists, and other hookers.
Now you've gone and done it. By publicizing the fact that they're using commercial off-the-shelf equipment you've opened the door to someone higher up mandating a "military-grade" system costing 100x as much.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The benefits of using standard 802.11 are things like wide compatibility, and the use of unlicensed frequencies... It sounds like neither is even a slight benefit in this case, as the units have to be modified (somehow) and the cost of licensed frequencies would probably be easily covered.
Of course, this story wasn't exactly heavy on the details.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The military has much higher requirements for equipment. It wasn't until just recently that 'throw away' equipment became good enough for military use. By that I mean that the cost of replacement / repair became equivalent or parity. A cantenna and a $70 router can be replaced quickly without need for repairs... that is to say that the repair process is called replacement. This was never the case for military grade equipment in the past.
The advent of surface mount parts caused the cost of manufacture to drastically drop while the cost of repair soared. This doesn't work for armored vehicles, but for electronics it does.
You will notice other effects of 'modern warfare' also: the humble low-tech RPG has been a fiercely dangerous weapon. Very low-tech roadside bombs are rising in popularity too. While that has little to do with the cantenna and COTS 802.11g router, it does show that high dollar, high tech equipment is not always the best choice. If it works, well.. it works, and if people in the field find something that works, you will have trouble stopping them from using it.
I'm sure that the Pringles company are more than willing to keep shipping chips to the middle east.
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If there's anything that could jam that connection, it would be a poorly-configured emule client! Or so my roommate says when I hog all the bandwidth. *blush*
:)
Now yeah, I know some of you are going to say "the network is coming from the coast guard boats, the vessel being boarded won't have access." I would like to remind you that this is a goverment operation so of course they'd be running their WAP wide-open, no security.
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This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Which is the same as the summary... what's the point?
Searching further, here's a link to GCN (Government Computer News) with a little bit more details: linky.
I watched a NASA film of an experiment they did on the Great Lakes in conjunction with the US Coast Guard. Over a distance of several miles (line of sight) they still managed to get over 1 Mb/sec with a WiFi connection. It was standard WiFi equipment, though I believe they were using non-standard antennas (NOT pringle cans).
[Insert pithy quote here]
Actually, antennas would have been the correct spelling even in Latin, since it is the object of the verb in the summary. So much for pedantry.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
For that sort of price you can go and get commercially rated devices ready made.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
from the FCC, since there is a legal limit on EIRP for 802.11. I strongly suspect that any means of increasing range to "several kilometers" would violate that limit.
Note that this is a mobile application which is limited by the FCC to 1W EIRP (fixed applications get 6db more).
Of course, this is all related to terrorists and homeland security, so laws don't apply.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I was making a smartass remark. Really.
I'll bet there's a Mil Std somewhere that requires the equipment to be resistant to everything from sea-salt to EMP. This adds cost. Probably for no actual good. However, as one of my commanders once told me "regulations are writen in blood."
$1400 may sound expensive, but what price on a life?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I just added a remark something like yours.
To amplify your comments, here in Atlanta, I've seen Marines at REI picking up all sorts of gear.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
While $1400 seems high, it probably covers more than just plain material cost. There is quite a bit cost involved in the paperwork, testing, approval what have you. Dealing with the military isn't like installing a new router for your brother-in-law.
I first read the headline as "Wi-Fi Hack Aids Boring Parties". I was thinking maybe someone hacked someone's wi-fi LAN to redirect every website into a porn site, and the prank made the papers or something. Then I started reading the summary, and it was all about the military raiding ships at sea. And I could only think to myself, "Holy shit, man, I may be a boring nerd, but I don't think I want my parties to be that exciting!"
:)
Then I re-read the headline. I think I liked my version better.
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Does this system use normal Part 15 frequencies? Because it's illegal to boost the power too much (either by high gain antenna or actually boosting the power).
1) "several kilometers" from a land station is not the "high seas." (The US claims a 12 mile territorial limit)
2) 802.11 is a bidirectional link. How do you propose that a ship communicate with shore unless the shore station also uses an increased EIRP?
The military has their own frequencies which they can use for (relatively) unencumbered communications. When they use the ISM bands used by 802.11, they are bound to the same limits as the rest of us (legally).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Better hope the BBC's Panorama don't hear about this one! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/2 6/1954220&from=rss
The initial work on this was done under the auspices an "off the shelf technology" program aboard USS Fletcher (DD 992) during work-ups and deployment in 2000, seeking to implement commercially available equipment in the tactical environment. This was a personal pet-project of one Capt. Noble, who went on to work at Defense Aqcuisitions at the Pentegon. The goal of the experiments then were to supplement the information broadcast over Link 11 systems with info from new-fangled digital cameras and personal GPS units. The difficulty then, and now, is that the system is standalone, i.e. the data broadcast over the wifi network is not immediately available to the battlegroup's common information systems. It must be copied from the communicating computer and manually copied to the ship's LAN. An example of this is the attempt to implement the wifi network on boarding support helicopters, which was halted upon realizing that the range was inadequate, it would require a fragile (by military standards) laptop aboard the aircraft, additional antennae would need to be mounted to the airframe, the aircraft's own datalink system combined with its own sensors often provided more tactically relevant information, and connectivity dropped out during any kind of maneuvering. This is not to say that there wasn't a need for the capability to transmit digital imagery to the on-scene commander, but the system as implemented suffered under the lack of integration with primary networks and the physical demands of boarding operations, usually carried out well beyond visual range of the mother ship, much less within reasonable wifi range.
Hmm..
Asus WL500G Premiun Wifi router (none of your Linksys tat) - £67 each
dd-wrt + crank up the power output to 100mW - FOC
9dbi gain antenna - about £6 each
12V DC battery pack - £20 each
10 mins for 'consultant' to flash the routers - £500
I used a similar setup (with mains adaptors and set to 40mW) to provide a stable link over about 700m from office to office across a public car park. Unfortunately, as an employee I couldn't charge the 'flashing fee'!
AT&ROFLMAO
Before pirates start using them.
$1400 may sound expensive, but what price on a life?
It's not that, it's the cost of the bureaucracy to sell that $1400 radio. I looked at doing some government subcontracting and to build these radios probably required two full-time contracts people just to handle the thousands of pages of regs. required by the contract.
It's a big-boys' game - they all make money and we pay for it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Why did they not use a Repeater type of setup like Packet Radio or richochet type gear? You could have every boat's radio reciever be a repeater as well creating a instant mesh network as the boats went out. Main ship has the sattelite link, service craft all use the mesh repeating radios and everyone has perfect net connectivity.
No, they use COTS wifi gear with a amp+preamp and some cubical quad patch antennas and have to worry about direction and path.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.