WiFi can locate connected objects through walls, this invention proves it


Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada have designed a system that uses Wi-Fi to “see” through walls. A light device mounted on a drone takes advantage of one of the characteristics of the communication protocol to accomplish this miracle.

Professor Ali Abedi tests Wi-Peep / Credit: University of Waterloo

The problem is that this new technique is easy to reproduce, and malevolent spirits could exploit it to target the accommodation of their potential victims. Well aware of the possibilities offered by their invention, the team of academics called their system Wi-Peep. The latter consists of an electronic chip mounted on a drone.

The Wi-Peep can fly at home height and send signals to all connected devices of a home or business. With all the pings thus obtained, it determines their location in space and establishes a mapping of places by triangulation. An operation that takes only a few seconds, made possible by one of the many inherent weaknesses of the WiFi protocol: the principle of Polite WiFi (Polite Wifi). This specificity of the WiFi protocol, in the hands of malicious people, becomes a flaw that is too easy to exploit.

In the wrong hands, this technique could locate electronic devices before a robbery

Its principle is very simple: any device connected to a WiFi network is programmed to respond to requests, even if the connection is password protected. Locating burglars can therefore accumulate information about the location of all these gadgets and the modem by calculating their position with Wi-Peep. Even more worryingly, Professor Ali Abedi, one of the team members, explains that this technology “can track the movements of security guards in a bank by pinging their smartphones or connected watches”. It wouldn’t be the first time a drone has been used for burglary purposes. We remember that robbers had robbed €150,000 in an ATM using a miniature drone.

Seen from this angle, the possibilities offered by this technology and the Polite WiFi are very numerous, especially since the flaw requires little equipment to be exploited. There isn’t much that can be done to counter these kinds of attacks, other than changing the WiFi protocol itself. This is the solution advocated by Professor Abedi. He specifies: “we need to fix the flaw in the Polite WiFi so that our devices do not respond to external signals. We hope that our work will help define the next generations of communication protocols”.

Source: University of Waterloo



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