Via Charles Mudede at Seattle’s Stranger, the Verge says there’s an upgrade in the works for every paranoid conspiracist’s tinfoil hat:
French researchers have developed wallpaper that’s designed to trap Wi-Fi signals, without interfering with radio or cellphone signals. It uses conductive ink containing silver crystals to to block a Wi-Fi router’s operating frequencies: your router should work as expected, but the signal won’t travel beyond the wallpaper’s boundaries. While currently only a prototype, researchers at the Grenoble Institute of Technology hope to make the wallpaper commercially available early next year.
Of course, once they figure out that ‘Grenoble’ is not the place where Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor cavorted, those Heartland Americans(tm) might reject it. But perhaps the Romneybot 2012 could work some of its Vietnam-era missionary contacts and procure an early-adopter supply to help avoid embarrassing episodes of signal glitches like this one:
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Frankensteinbeck
It’s not what he said. George Bush proved that. It’s the awkward and pathetic and desperate way he said it. Last I checked, ‘floundering’ is not what the mushy middle want to see in a president. The GOP base hate it, too.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Whew. Finally, maybe a way to block the stray wifi signals in my living room, assuming they trap in both directions. And keeping the goddamn government from reading my thoughts for cures to insomnia, or other diabolical Gman plots. Take that mr surveillance state biggy brother.
bemused
Mitt was looking very sweaty, nervous this week. I’m actually watching him more now waiting to see when he really cracks because he looks like he’s in panic mode to me. It’s amusing to watch him twitch.
burnspbesq
Let’s recap: to prevent unauthorized access to my wireless network I can (1) invest in expensive and presumably ugly wallpaper or (2) select a strong password.
Even a tax lawyer can figure this one out
burnspbesq
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Silly person, don’t you know that the eebil Gubmint forces dentists to hide tiny transmitters in your fillings? The only way to protect yourself is to rip out all your teeth.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
I’m waiting for deflector shields myself, before I actually go to the incredible effort of changing my password from “admin”.
amk
@bemused: 24×7
lyingflipflops does that to you. What a ratfucker.Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
@Villago Delenda Est: My former boss refused to change his password from 7777. We would go in and change it on him just for fun
Maude
@burnspbesq:
Wrap the router in tin foil. Problem solved.
Hal
That line slays me. “I stand by what I said, whatever it was” should be Romney’s official campaign slogan. Also, he might want to invest some of his millions in some ginkgo biloba, because he seems to be having continuous memory deficiencies. MittBots positronic brain must have a glitch somewhere.
Hal
Made the mistake of clicking on a huffpo headline regarding the Breitbart story on Obama’s old bio saying he was born in Kenya. Yeesh, I had no idea so many huffpo commentators were birthers. It’s tin foil hat forum over there with 6200+ comments. My favorite so far:
Someone has the Manchurian Candidate in their Netflix queue.
gaz
Trace Wifi always leaks around these boundaries. You just need to make a predator receiver – basically an amped wifi (I like the broadcomm chips for this) with a directional antenna. Various businesses that provide free wifi already have foiled windows and such, but if you point one of these predator gadgets at them you’ll still generally get a signal, albeit on the weak side.
Pringles cans and lag bolts rule.
gaz
@burnspbesq: wifi passwords are nearly useless if one is determined to scalp your signal. Even wpa2 can be cracked.
That said, you are correct in that it will block casual users. Unfortunately, the overhead required for encryption can make streaming problematic. If you want to protect yourself from your neighbors, it’s usually good enough to
A) Turn off SSID broadcast if possible (some of your devices may not like this so YMMV)
B) add a mac-filter
Neither of those methods are very secure, but they are often good enough to keep the lay thieves out, and have the advantage of not wasting your precious wifi bandwidth with an encryption layer.
ETA: If security is a big concern, wired is the way to go, as the performance is great and can’t be scalped without physical splicing. A good compromise is to use those network adapters that use your household wiring (they plug into wall outlets)
gaz
@Hal: That expression begs for a bumper sticker.
Catsy
@gaz: Listen to this, for he knows of what he speaks. Turning off SSID broadcast and only allowing connections from the MAC addresses of your own machines–while not unhackable–will deter all but a determined and skilled hacker. And neither is usually difficult to do if you know how to use a mouse, keyboard and Google.
This wallpaper idea is hilarious. I’m assuming none of these people have windows in their houses.
Ben Cisco
@Villago Delenda Est: That, and a ship that can fire while cloaked. Just in case.
Ben Cisco
@Hal: He needs a logo.
Perhaps one of those spinning merry-go-round thingies from the kids playgrounds.
Either that, or one of these.
Ben Cisco
@Hal:
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@burnspbesq:
I’d add (3) change password frequently.
But that said (as others have pointed out) if someone wants your data badly enough, and assuming that they have the technical know-how and the funds, they will get it one way or the other.
gaz
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: I think it’s important for people to remember that security measures are not an absolute, but rather a factor of how many hoops you want a potential miscreant to jump through. Van Eck phreaking is well out of range for even most accomplished crackers. Hell, there’s almost NO case where I’d want the data badly enough to bother with that.
A wired connection (particularly when the wires are INSIDE your house) is generally more than secure enough. You won’t be able to packet sniff through a wall and through a shielded CAT6 cable with reliability.
A good rule of thumb for people that are security minded is to make your network as secure as your home is. IOW: If they have to commit burglary to scalp your net, you are probably good. The primary reason for this is that once they’ve gained access to your house, they can just steal your equipment.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@gaz:
Commercial-grade cable leaks theoretically measurable magnetic fields, so I wouldn’t trust cabling 100%, either.
But yes, the ability to do so is quite expensive– Burns would have to have a foreign government or some multi-billion dollar corporation after his data.
Beyond that, we agree. I like the ‘bicycle/car thief’ analogy. If someone really wants your bike or car badly enough, short of preemptively destroying your own property, they will have it. But you can make doing so quite expensive and difficult for the would-be thief, hopefully sending them on their way to some easier target.
gaz
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Exactly!
Adding, the best way to secure your car is to
A) Don’t leave anything of value in it.
B) When possible, park next to a NICER car that’s easier to break into =) Convertibles are always a good decoy =)
gaz
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Actually we agree on the no security is 100% statement as well, which is why I lead with the “no security is absolute” remark. People that believe otherwise (or even allow themselves to sort of operate subconsciously with that) are easy targets. Which is why “NO SECURITY is 100% security, EVER” cannot be stressed enough. People seem to fall into that trap a lot, and it’s a wonderful thing if you happen to be a thief =)
burnspbesq
@gaz:
Haven’t had significant issues yet, and I stream high-resolution audio to a Squeezebox Touch.
Someone who refuses to be deterred can’t be deterred. I just don’t want to share our network with the jackasses who invade our neighborhood every weekend for youth soccer.