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"Knitted" Wi-Fi Routers Create Failover Network For First Responders
wiredmikey writes "Wireless Internet routers used in homes and offices could be knitted together to provide a communications system for emergency responders if the mobile phone network fails, German scientists reported on Monday. In many countries, routers are so commonplace that they could be used by police and fire departments if cell towers and networks are down or overwhelmed by people caught up in an emergency, they say. This rich density means that an emergency network could piggyback on nearby routers, giving first responders access to the Internet and contact with their headquarters. The researchers suggest that routers incorporate an emergency 'switch' that responders can activate to set up a backup network, thus giving them a voice and data link through the Internet. This could be done quite easily without impeding users or intruding on their privacy, the study argues. Many routers already have a 'guest' mode, meaning a supplementary channel that allows visitors to use a home's Wi-Fi." This is a cool angle on mesh networking — reminds me of the emergency response capabilities of ham radio; if it sounds intriguing, remember that even sparse networks can make use of this kind of networking with the right antennas. Related: even without touching the hardware on your router, you can do some meshing around with Byzantium.
Is there a Cell Phone version? I mean, not everyone knows how to revamp their router, whereas everyone knows how to enable that "in case of an emergency" App. (For Mesh, not for using the cell network)
Once you let them have access to your network, they will rely on it more and more, till they saturate your network. Unless they want to pay for using my equipment and my service, I say no way!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
No. GTFO my premises.
Ah, typical Euro-centric thinking where they think because you live in Paris, you can just usurp free wifi because it's there. Never mind that it's on shared cable modem bandwidth and that typically bandwidth in Europe is shit. The ISM band is so saturated that you could charge your phone just through induction because to live there you're living 3-5 stacked on top of each other (in the city). So when the lights go out, so does the Wi-Fi network. If you were relying on the mobile network instead of dedicated 2-way radios, then it usually means that the mobile network will overload instantly with people calling their friends asking "are the light out where you are?" And I don't like the idea of an Emergency "switch" of any kind backdooring my router. Cisco already does it with their 'Vault' devices and the idea that I would now have to rent my router that I paid full price for from the retailer makes me want to smash the device with a hammer. Don't try relying on it outside of the city tho... it goes from city one block to farm land just like that. And it would never work here because of the suburbs.
boom goes the dynamite....
Will the ISP make the data cap free?
If not I may want to lock down the WIFI even more and use 3rd party firmware.
Here in the UK, anywhere near a home network you'll also find that your mobile phone will detect BTOpenZone Wi-fi. As Wifi is relatively short range, it stands to reason that this "open zone" network is just piggybacking on the network wifi of their subscribers as it doesn't cost them anything but a bit of software inside home routers that they'd provide anyway.
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I used to live next door to a public library that had free wifi. Guess where the safest spot in the neighborhood was on the graveyard shift? That's right - the library's parking lot. Without fail, almost every night, there would be a cruiser parked there with the two cops surfing the net. I guarantee you that this 'emergency switch' would just get used by cops to get free internet access where they're hidin...er, "patrolling".
Please help metamoderate.
German scientists? Isn't Germany the country that made it illegal to have an open wifi network? So if you want to give free wifi access to Joe Public, you're going to get your ass fined. But I guess if the state wants to use your bandwidth, hey, that's just dandy.
Yeah, but the emergency switch would probably include some kind of extra functionality....like giving police the ability to monitor your network traffic, kill your network, or even just allow them to park outside your house and surf the net while eating donuts.
Don't emergency services have their own dedicated communications networks?
Sure, most police departments that I've seen use mobile data terminals for dispatching calls but the dispatcher, officer, and car itself still have two-way radios. They can still communicate among themselves and dispatch calls using radios, albeit slightly less efficiently than they can with mobile data terminals.
In the US at least, emergency services have priority access to telecommunication networks like mobile and landline phone networks. So long as the network itself is intact (but merely overwhelmed by non-emergency calls) they will be able to get access.
Why would any emergency service worth their salt even remotely consider using home networks, particularly with no assurance of service quality or availability?
Lastly, what prevents bad guys from operating this "switch" to gain access to home networks? Even if they can't access the internal network itself, they'd be able to piggyback on the connection to browse the internet (likely for nefarious purposes if they're activating this sort of access switch).
As soon as some well meaning person starts suggesting this be built into routers, this opens you up for another vector to be hacked.
If the routers have such a switch, it won't be long before someone else figures out how to enable it, and essentially turn your router over to them. And, for those of us whose internet usage is metered, we'd end up paying for this.
This is just a big giant back door which is screaming to be abused.
This is one of those ideas which sounds kind of nice on the surface, but which would be fraught with really bad implementations and unintended consequences. This researcher is kind of like people who try to pass laws around technology, and utterly fail to comprehend the other related issues.
You may not open up a communications channel on something I'm legally liable for without my permission. In many places, that is illegal.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So if I'm on comcast and have a data cap, that could potentially be used by our underpaid/volunteer fire department so they don't have to maintain their own internet access? Do I get prorated on the amount of data they use? Would they pay the bill if they use 90% of the bandwidth? Money, money, money. Millions in state and federal grants, but they would use my internet none-the-less.
So if a random ambulance driver (or an actual bad guy who finds a way to abuse this) browses something illegal (like child porn) with this, then what happens to the person who owns the router? FBI knocking on the door/reputation ruined?
IMO, cops don't count as emergency responders, as they pretty much always show up far too late to be of any assistance. Plus, (and this pretty much goes without saying) cops cannot, repeat, cannot be trusted with access to the devices and networks of private citizens - they will abuse the privilege, guaranteed.
I don't have a problem allowing EMT's and firefighters to piggyback off my system (with explicit, incidental permission of course), but LEO's can suck hind teet.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
We could always tell the govt granted monopoly cable isps they need to install a first responder only wifi hotspot at every node... but sure lets burden the public to give up their privacy and security in the name of emergency communication failover, and burden device manufacturers with building these backdoors even if that means they cant sell them in other markets...
Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property; A Corporation is the legal fiction that property is a person.
The researchers suggest that routers incorporate an emergency 'switch'
TWO WORDS:
FUCK.
YOU.
A new study has shown that saws are so common place they could be used by lumberjacks in case of emergancy situations. The report suggest putting lumberjack accessable doors on all tool sheds.
Everyone gets excited about using the latest, greatest shiny expensive box to buy so they can play at being police dispatchers, and nobody actually does any radio.
Keep emcomm off the amateur bands. Let them stick to the frequencies allocated to blue-light services, or mobile phones if necessary.
A few people have already mentioned a few really big drawbacks with such a system, but most of them are easy to fix.
The first and biggest point, the emergency system should have a very visual notice of activation. Optionally even audio alarm since in the case where such a huge scale emergency were to happen, PEOPLE WOULD WANT TO KNOW.
This is one of the best and easiest ways to announce that a settlement-wide or higher emergency event has happened.
2 birds with 1 stone.
This should also never be capable of being disabled, only extended. (so, a different alarm for whatever reason, but never ever be capable of removing the fact that some sort of emergency has happened, no sound means default one plays)
This alarm should also play every minute until it is disabled by button press on the router, or a day has passed. (the likeliness of this being abused is minor)
Two. Completely separate system that handles the basic networking of it.
No signal from the emergency network should ever pass through the hardware that sends the signals to their respective child nodes.
Any message tagged from the emergency system should be intercepted before this part, completely transparent.
This should also work in such a way that neither system can detect each other. 2 separate encryption systems.
Three. At least 1/3 of the throughput should be the default. By default. You can assign a higher percentage if you wish to.
Facts are, most people rarely use even a small percentage of its abilities. Any case where there was a serious emergency level would likely null the need for whatever uses they actually are being used for since THE ALIENS ARE ATTACKING OH GOD THEY ARE RIDING RAPTORS.
Four.
Every design should be completely public knowledge.
You can bet your damn ass some abusive group would backdoor the hell out of this thing if they could.
They already backdoored all mobiles and were found out about it and went through a hell of damage control. They will gladly do it again, they don't need to defend their decisions to us simple peasants.
Five.
Make a system like this in general and allow users to distribute internet access in the case of an emergency.
Just make sure to prevent abuse by people anonymously uploading dodgy content through the network.
Internet should be a basic right in this day. The ability to actually join a distributed network created by the people for the people for very basic access to services would be an ideal world.
Will any of this happen? Hell no.
I hate this world sometimes.
An emergency that takes out cell phone towers / antennas, but leaves the electrical power infrastructure intact to power said routers? Sounds like a rare emergency indeed. I suppose if all your electrics are subterranean, maybe a wind storm sans water would fall into this category. Maybe.
and use a mesh network of small wireless switches with the capability of bypassing the main cell switches if necessary? Wouldn't that solve their capacity problem AND provide emergency networks as part of the bargain? Am I missing something or are they?
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You can't make a mesh network when the power goes out and the power always goes out in an emergency.
So you want to help them (Big Brother) spy on you even more than they already are?
Nothing is what it seems, think (we are only killing you for your own good), as a simile.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
So, the man can activate your router and access it. Warrant-less search? Nahh, we trust them to have our best interest at heart, right?
See the Serval Mesh networking project.
There's been a lot of work put into getting people to stop sharing their networks or using open networks so now a lot of people use passwords and WPA/WPA2 is commonplace.
Mesh networking would now need to run alongside this way of doing things now, or at least have a switch for emergency use; not ideal.
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Personally, I think this idea is silly. Almost every router out there relies on power from the grid. You lose that, and you lose your connectivity to the Internet. First responders should not be outsourcing their critical communications needs to cellular providers or local wifi hotspots. If they are, it's hard to argue their communications needs are critical. Yes, dedicated, secure networks are expensive, but they are dedicated and secure, which means it's less likely they are going to get overwhelmed, overloaded, or hacked.
The WiFi spectrum is highly saturated already with WiFi netowrks. Yet so many projects continue to utilize the WiFi spectrum for stuff other than traditional WiFi uses.
Here we have an article about a mesh WiFi network(unreliable) for first responders! Let's hope that first responders are going to use a frequency that is reserved fro their sole use, mesh or otherwise and that they will not be trying to shoehorn themselves into the already overcrowded WiFi spectrum.
Also today, I saw an article about WiFi connected car crash avoidance.
Using WiFi for these functions is inherently stupid!
Besides the obvious tin-foil hat, privacy, and security concerns that people are going to mention, the people that created this idea overlook something fairly important. In my area, if something was severe enough to knock out all of the cell phone towers within range of a cell phone, then the power grid and/or internet connections are almost certainly down in that area. Without power, the routers are not going to be on. The Internet connection may or may not be important, depending on how they want the communication to reach the headquarters.. if they intend on using voip over the Internet from the router, then it will fail. These concerns may or may not be an issue in other areas. In large cities, cellphone towers may be overworked in an emergency... but the likelihood of the towers in my area becoming overworked is quite small.
I think the better idea would be to either find a way to give first-responder/emergency workers a way to gain priority on the towers, instead forcing router manufacturers to waste time and money to incorporate something that will not only be fairly useless in most cases, but will also open a number of other concerns.
The cops and firefighters have their own dedicated coms. So why do they need another? Citizens, however, do need an emergency system if the government decides it wants to begin censoring communications, monitoring them, or shutting them down. Having a mesh network that could spontaneously form would be especially useful in that case. Rather makes the prospect of cops being able to confiscate cameras and other devices recording their misconduct rather futile, doesn't it? As in, sure, take the guy in the front's phone or camera, but all the thousand people in back already have the footage and are uploading it to the broader internet, plus they have footage of the exact officers who are confiscating the guy in front's camera.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
The range of wifi is usually less than 100 meters, so to send a message across town it would have to go through hundreds of routers. Wouldn't that create enormous latency for things like voice? Sending messages would of course be perfectly possible, but something like a phone call would seem wildly optimistic. Or am I completely wrong?
I have been saying this for years. There are enough routers and cell phones that if every device was wired or wirelessly connected to every other one, you could create a massive mesh network. It couldn't be controlled or have a fee, so it won't happen though. It would just be a one time cost to buy the hardware and the fiber optics, it would also connect wirelessly for long distance runs or for simple installs.
Or, and you would have to talk to your neighbors about stringing a fiber line from your house to the next one. And 90% of the population would want to do it.
with specialized antennas, routers, and the additional transmitter power allowed by a ham radio license it is possible to quickly create a mesh network in the event of an emergency. http://hsmm-mesh.org/
there are also the data services provided by d-star, and much of our country is already covered by dstar repeaters, many with backup power etc. i have heard of some joint operation with first responders using these.
failing data, there is always the worldwide and local voice communication network provided by hams in times of emergency.
-Lod
This is wierd. Not the concept, after all this has been around for a while.
The idea that to make a windows version costs $50K but a mac version costs $1,750K according to their kickstarter.
"This is a cool angle on mesh networking " And an H-bomb is a cool angle on nuclear physics.