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Jamming Wi-Fi With a $15 Dongle
An anonymous reader writes with this report about just how easy it is to disrupt if not entirely kill modern consumer-grade networks -- not just Wi-Fi, but Bluetooth and Zigbee networks, too. Crucial to determining the likelihood of any given kind of attack, though, is how much it would cost the attacker to attempt. The bad news for network owners and users is that it doesn't cost much at all: "According to Mathy Vanhoef, a PhD student at KU Leuven (Belgium), it can easily be done by using a Wi-Fi $15 dongle bought off Amazon, a Raspberry Pi board, and an amplifier that will broaden the range of the attack to some 120 meters."
Wait, it took a PhD student to figure out that broadcasting malicious signals disrupts signals on the similar wavelengths? And OMGs it effects BlueTooth, too!? Totally didn't know that two personal usage wireless communication specs would both be using unlicensed spectrum, WHO WOULDA THOUGHT!?
I can do it for quite a bit less. Just put a small piece of plastic into the door switch of a microwave so it thinks it is closed, but leave it open. Now turn it on. You can cook yourself while killing Wifi all throughout the house! [DISCLAIMER, DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS]
...did you know that you can render a car inoperable with a device as simple and cheap as a nail? That you can destroy many electronics simply by getting them wet? That you can harm a person simply by swinging a fist into them? Etc, etc, etc.
Yes, we know this. For many things, it's not possible to make them unbreakable, therefore we enact societal consequences for breaking them like jail, fines, etc. It's been that was for, well, all of recorded history.
You'd have a bubble where people were fiddling with their phones because it just crapped out on them.