Posted on 10/02/2009 11:28:48 PM PDT by sonofstrangelove
Don't like the idea of your neighbors rudely snooping on the wireless signal you slaved to pay for from the lazy comfort of their living room? It's not just about slowing down your connection; while they're downloading Mad Men via bittorrent, you could be on the hook for their actions.
Wireless security and encryption systems are fraught with problems and insecurity, and other methods to restrict your signal to a small area are cumbersome at best.
Enter a new solution: Anti-Wi-Fi paint.
The idea is simple: Use a special paint on walls where you don't want wireless to pass through (say the exterior of your house). The secret is mixing aluminum-iron oxide particles in with the paint. The metal particles resonate at the same frequency as Wi-Fi and other radio waves, so signals can't pass through the thin layer of pigment. Outsiders would simply be unable to access your wireless network, just as you, inside the house, won't be able to interlope on anything beamed on the outside.
Developed by the University of Tokyo, the paint is said to be the first that can block radio frequency in higher spectra where Wi-Fi and other higher-bandwidth communications occur rather than just low-frequency wireless like FM radio. Most Wi-Fi technologies operate at 2.4GHz; the Tokyo paint can reportedly block frequencies all the way up to 100GHz, with a 200GHz-blocking paint now in the works.
The paint isn't just of interest to those concerned about wireless leaking out of the building. Movie theaters have long been interested in finding a legal way to keep cell phones silent during screenings. .
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.yahoo.com ...
That’s interesting.
Don’t forget to paint the roof. This prevents the black helicopters from reading your thoughts and makes those hot days much more tolerable without the normal cranial tinfoil guard.
Are you going to paint your windows with it also ? There is always going to a point where the signal will leak out.
Isn’t there a legal benefit from having the sign accessible by others? Didn’t certain people win legal cases because the plaintiffs couldn’t prove who was using the signals?
So paying for and applying special paint all over your house is preferable to figuring out how to apply a security key and the option not to announce your networks presence?
This sounds very unlikely to work in the real world. Windows, trim, the roof, etc can’t all be painted over seamlessly. Any slots, openings etc will leak all over. Even the wiring in your home is an antenna to couple the signals outside your home.
Encryption does work. But you have to use it and use it properly.
Now paint that absorbs 2.4 GHz effectively (especially if it can cover a much broader frequency range) has lots of other uses. Current conductive shield paint is expensive.
And, wouldn’t the paint block incoming and outgoing signals as well? Such an arrangement is often referred to as a “Farraday Cage” and the object of the arrangement is to provide an isolated area for sensitive RF measurements. I seriously doubt that this would prove to be of any use in the Wi-Fi world. Save your money and don’t buy the paint.
Um, three simple words:
CAT-6 ethernet cable.
What’s so important about wireless?
Udeal conditions (clear line of sight and directional antenna) about five miles.
Save yourself the hassle and use WPA/PSK?
The article reads as if someone using your wireless connection is unavoidable.
Think about the wireless bugs planted by big brother that would no longer function. Think that the feddies might want this outlawed because it might interfere with them spying on us...
Git yourself a double wide...solves all your problems.
Aluminum foil works great!
Uhhhh, ever heard of encrypted WPA passwords that run around 32 multi characters?
Pretty sure you can lock things down.
I’ll be sure to get right on the painting thing. Those pesky neighbors.
Turn on 64/128 bit security, turn off SSID broadcast, and make your router/modem only talk to specific MAC addresses.
Hell of a lot cheaper than paint...
Your cell phone is not going to work inside the house.
“There is always going to a point where the signal will leak out.”
But if there is a leak, obama’s attorney general will find it. /s
very interesting
Not surprising. Aluminum siding does the trick too.
I’d offer a comment on this thread, but I’m currently surfing on a 300 baud modem attached to a Commodore-64.
*cries*
Curbside, right in front of your house.
You’d be absolutely amazed how fast it can be and how much pure rubbish is on many, if not most, web pages!
It’s not miles, or even hundreds of feet.
150 maybe, under ideal circumstances. In practice, if it’s inside your house, you might pick up a signal on your driveway, or you might not.
And contrary to what the (terrible as usual) Yahoo news article says, encryption isn’t “fraught with problems and insecurity”. Leaving encryption off and setting your password to something silly might be, but encryption isn’t something some scheming hacker can just cleverly weasel through.
The math involved is such that having every computer in the world working to crack it would still take hundred (or thousands, or some other irrelevant number) of years to figure it out.
Correct. I have my DSL modem turned to max output, and wandering around with a laptop, the farthest I can go is 100-125 feet or so. Then it becomes to spotty to be of use.
And you can break 64 or 128 bit security, but it takes specialized software running on multiple computers (a “poker” and a sniffer), not a trivial task.
WPA encryption and a MAC address.
If you’re really worried, cover the modem with foil when not in use.
Dumb.. that why you have WPA2
It WPA2 encryption that needed is all
Depends on where the antenna is located in the house. If in a basement, then the signal will be weak. If right next to a window in the front of the house, it will be strong. Usually these units have a distance of 250 feet ( provided there are no obstructions ( such as other houses, etc. between the signals ). Plus also depends on how good the hackers receiver is.
This is the main reason why I never lock my doors. Why bother, when a burglar can simply pick or force the locks?
RE :”So paying for and applying special paint all over your house is preferable to figuring out how to apply a security key and the option not to announce your networks presence?
“
LOL, before I die I want to get rich on some invention to lure suckers, like “No money down”(forclosed houses) , or “Extend” (penis enhancement) or “Nutra-system”, (packaged meals to make you thin) ot that no work online business creation disk. Even most personal trainers have a scam selling a dream to those that have the desire without motivation.
Everyone wants something for nothing and is willing to pay for it,
Been there, done that!
Bocking MAC address and turning off SSID is not a lock that a “no trespassing sign” with an unlocked door an no one home not even a dog
If you block other with paint you block yourself also.
If the reason you have wi-fi is so that you can use a lapto in the garage or in the yar or out on the deck , do you noy defeat the purpose with the paint?
Make sure to replace all the metal fillings in your teeth with ceramic.
This is the ideal of the ideal. Completely unobstructed space and no interference (e.g. from microwave ovens which generate a lot of hash in this band).
In a typical suburban neighborhood you’re lucky to get it to the next house.
I remember one jerk who parked his car outside a coffee house with free WiFi, not just to use their signal, which was supposed to be for customers, but they didn’t mind; but he had the gall to put computer viruses on to their system.
Seeing him do this, the employee who maintained the computer walked over to his car, knocked on the window and asked him to stop with the viruses. He didn’t say anything, and just drove away.
An hour later he came back and went right back to being obnoxious, so the same employee knocked on his window and said, “The next time you park your car here, we are going to use a baseball bat on it.”
You guessed it, he still came back. They gave up and called the cops. The moral of the story is, if you are going to be rude, obnoxious, and arrogant, don’t irritate others enough to call the cops if you have outstanding warrants.
It will also block signals coming in. Perhaps encoding the signal would be a tad smarter than redecorating the house.
WPA whips the problem (pun intended).
The SSID suppression keeps it from showing up on garden variety wireless clients. That could reduce the chances of a spoof. (I.e. someone else masquerades as your wireless router’s SSID, with encryption turned OFF, so that your system might choose it to connect instead. Then they watch your traffic, perform man in the middle attacks, etc.)
I’m about 50 feet from mine, through three walls, and my signal reads ‘low’.
Just buy a huge lot with your house in the middle.
And how many people in most neighborhoods are going to do this?
You may have to go outside the house to use your cell-phone though, because their frequencies are close and the “paint” is rather broad-banded in its filtering effect.
I’m waiting for the photo of someone with a tinfoil hat.
Right; cover and obfuscate.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.