Slashdot Mirror
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A blog I run for the wealth
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.
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