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United States Hardware Technology

Pentagon and Wi-Fi Deal Reached 120

Posted by Hemos from the making-things-work dept.
byteCoder writes "CNet reports that the US Military and the Wi-Fi manufacturers have struck an agreement on reducing the interference on military radars by Wi-Fi equipment. Basically, future wireless equipment will detect the presence of military radar and not transmit over the top of it. Additionally, as part of the compromise, defense officials will endorse the doubling of the number of allowed wireless frequencies--thus opening more spectrum to wireless users (as long as the FCC and Congress agree)."
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Pentagon and Wi-Fi Deal Reached More

Pentagon and Wi-Fi Deal Reached

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  • Win-Win (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gallifrey ( 221570 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:18AM (#5215451)
    This is a great example of a win-win scenario. Seems perfectly reasonable to me and the results can benefit everyone. More frequencies, more channels, easier to cover a building, etc...
    • You are dealing with Corporations. american Corporations at that.

      How long before Corporation A decides to get into a price war with Corp B, and sees the military radar detection as a cost savings removal?

      Also, how many customers will give a rats ass about some military Radar? They will demand full power.

      all in all this is utter nonsense. WiFi uses only the public bands which are already used by cordless telephones and remote control cars, etc. Is their a deal with the cordless phone companies as well???

      Im baffled at what this is really about.
      • How long before Corporation A decides to get into a price war with Corp B, and sees the military radar detection as a cost savings removal?
        Also, how many customers will give a rats ass about some military Radar? They will demand full power.

        Did you even read the article?

        This is an FCC bandwidth allotment issue, in the 5ghz range. Compliance with this agreement will be required in any device intended for the market. If Corporation A wants to have it's license to manufacture devices in that spectrum yanked, hey, more power to them.
        • If Corporation A wants to have it's license to manufacture devices in that spectrum yanked, hey, more power to them.

          I think a quicker and more effective solution will be to have a couple companies of Marines re-negotiate with the manufacturer until it sees the errors of its ways. The Marine engineers are especially good at "removing" obstacles.

        • Uhh what? Specifically wi-fi is in "unlicensed" spectrum so which license are you referring to pulling?

          Yes you must meet FCC regulations, but This does not affect existing equipment AFAIK which makes the article just plain meaningless. Again I reiterate their is no way wi-fi can be singled out, their are MANY more cordless telephones in 2GHz range than their are wi-fi units, and their will be in 5GHz as well...

  • Cooperation (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:18AM (#5215456)
    What a novel idea.

  • Just what I've always wanted (Score:5, Funny)

    by mfago ( 514801 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:19AM (#5215457)
    ... a military radar detector.
    • ... a military radar detector.

      With detectors comes jammers... ahhh, nevermind, maybe I shouldn't F with the military radar... Just the police radar.

      Ya gotta love fuzzbusters though!

      • Re:Just what I've always wanted (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Cy Guy ( 56083 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:56AM (#5215639) Homepage Journal
        With detectors comes jammers

        Similarly, just by mimicking the signal of the military radar you could launch a Denial of Service attack against anyone trying to use Wi-Fi.

        It would seem this compromise results in a serious trade-off of National security versus the security of the users' own systems. It could end up being a nasty tool for industrial sabotage if you could shut down networking at competitor's facility from a van parked outside. As a result, it could limit the acceptance of Wi-Fi as a replaced for wired LANs - and keep it as a mobile only technology.

        (I know a lot of supposition went into that, but heck, I'm only posting to SlashDot).

        • Re:Just what I've always wanted (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          This could be a serious problem. At work last night, our inventory system used by order fillers lost all communications with the 802.11 radios in the warehouse. Everything came to a stop. We were totally dependant on that system for each order from the racks. About two hundred people, payed by the hour, were idle. $15 an hour * 200 people adds up real quick. I could imagine what a person across the street could do with some low power magic bullet.

          You could put someone out of business in a hard way with a few dozen DOS attacks like this.
        • It's already quite trivial to overload a WiFi AP and make it useless. Much more money and effort would have to go into creating something to 'mimic' a military radar system than is currently needed to blast the 2.4GHz spectrum with noise.

        • It could end up being a nasty tool for industrial sabotage if you could shut down networking at competitor's facility from a van parked outside.

          The only problem with that is that it's already incredibly easy to jam WiFi as it is. Aim your directional jammer at your competition's access points and they go deaf. This development would just tell WiFi equipment to shut-up when it detects military interference rather than uselessly jabber away.
        • Similarly, just by mimicking the signal of the military radar you could launch a Denial of Service attack against anyone trying to use Wi-Fi. It would seem this compromise results in a serious trade-off of National security versus the security of the users' own systems. It could end up being a nasty tool for industrial sabotage if you could shut down networking at competitor's facility from a van parked outside. As a result, it could limit the acceptance of Wi-Fi as a replaced for wired LANs - and keep it as a mobile only technology

          As opposed to driving up a van jamming the traditional mobile frequencies...?

          I don't see why jamming the shared frequencies should have any better or worse consequences than jamming the traditional ones. Possibly better, if the system adapts well around jammed frequencies. Possibly worse, if it overreacts and turns off a broad spectrum because of a small jam presence.

          Tor
        • Similarly, just by mimicking the signal of the military radar you could launch a Denial of Service attack against anyone trying to use Wi-Fi.

          Messing with military radar by mimicking the signal has led to serious user harm [navy.mil]. Use with caution.

    • whole new meaning to wardriving? (Score:4, Funny)

      by nlinecomputers ( 602059 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @02:27PM (#5216446)
      Does this mean that you'll have Iraq solders running around with Pringle's cans scouting the radar sites out for Scuds to hit?

      Note to tank drivers: If you have a circle'd W chalked on your tank you've been painted.

      INCOMEING....

  • More frequencies good... the military getting into consumer products, seems bad in general though this doesn't seem that harmful.

    • Re:Mixed results? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lucifuge31337 ( 529072 ) <daryl@in t r o s p e c t . n et> on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:41AM (#5215569) Homepage
      the military getting into consumer products, seems bad in general

      WHAT? Do you live in a cave?

      TONS of consumer technology has its roots in military-developed technology. You wouldn't be able to waste your time on /. if it weren't for a military research project.

      • Re:Mixed results? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Starrider ( 73590 )
        Damned straight!

        Microwave ovens (radar research)
        the worlds first electronic computer (for calculating artillery angles and trajectories)
        the Internet (linking not only colleges and campuses, but military bases. The old original internet can still withstand a nuclear strike)
        Pennicilin (an attempt to keep soldiers alive longer after being wounded, discovered via accident during this process)
        Rocketry (advanced greatly by the Germans in WWII)
        Most advances in radio technology and aeronautics were out of necessity during wars ....and the list goes on and on. My personal opinion is that it is wonderful that we are able to take devices and inventions originally used to destroy and kill and turn them into things that better our quality of life.
    • Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of lighting system that was going to interfere with WiFi frequencies? How does the military feel about that?

  • Who wins? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PseudonymousCoward ( 161283 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:24AM (#5215487)
    Will WiFi equipment be able to tell the difference between military radar, police department radar, and other forms of non-WiFi radiation in the relevant frequency ranges? Will WiFi stop working if I wardrive near a police car? Will it stop working if a police car drives by my house?

    Does this "agreement" allow anyone who wants to suppress the use of WiFi to turn on a device that simulates 'military radar"?

    Just wondering.
    .
    • It shouldn't really make much difference. If there is someone transmitting on a channel, you don't want to use that channel anyway, as you're going to get interfence with your transmittions.
    • It would seem to me that in the event of radar interference, you would stop using that part of the band. With more frequencies set up, future cards could just change bands, or lose a single band, losing 10% or a similar amount of their bandwidth, not a total stop.

    • Who wins? Not me, apparently. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Will WiFi stop working if I wardrive near a police car? Will it stop working if a police car drives by my house?

      Since the cops have a speed trap right behind my house (about 30 feet from my kitchen wall), it looks like I'm going to have to cover my entire house with a Faraday cage.
      • Since the cops have a speed trap right behind my house (about 30 feet from my kitchen wall), it looks like I'm going to have to cover my entire house with a Faraday cage.

        You've got that all wrong; the economical thing is to encase the speed trap instead, since it'll be smaller ;-)

        (In fact, as others have pointed out, police use much higher frequencies - all 10GHz or higher - which won't affect any WiFi type kit. It's just the older military radars - as in aircraft - which use 5GHz, and would conflict with 802.11a's use unless you're careful.)

      • Wouldn't it be cheaper to just put up a sign that says, "Speed Limits Enforced Via Radar, 10 yards ahead"?
    • >> Does this "agreement" allow anyone who wants to suppress the use of WiFi to turn on a device that simulates 'military radar"?

      If only there were such an "agreement" regarding the various cell phone frequencies; the roads would be safer and the movie theaters more quiet.

    • Frequency for Radar (Score:5, Informative)

      by Orne ( 144925 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:47AM (#5215602) Homepage
      Last time i checked, police departments should not be broadcasting in the military spectrum.. second, houses don't tend to speed, so there's no reason why the police should beam their radar guns at your house. Third, even if they did, it wouldn't do anything.

      Information [hypertextbook.com] on police radar guns: "The granddaddy of systems is X band radar... X band operates on the narrow channel from 10.500 to 10.550 gigahertz (GHz)... K band appeared in the seventies and quickly became popular in its deadliest form: a hand held gun featuring an instant on switch. K band operates on a higher-frequency channel from 24.050 to 24.250 GHz... In 1989, photo radar appeared on the scene, and it was bad news for motorists--it operated on a frequency that was undetectable by existing radar detectors. The FCC set up a channel for photo-radar from 34.200 to 34.400 GHz, which lies within the wide Ka band... Which brings us to the Stalker, the latest wrinkle in hand-held radar guns. It operates on the Ka band anywhere from 34.200 to 35.200 GHz."

      Here is another informative article [dailywireless.org] on how the Wi-Fi is colliding with the millitary radar, down at 5 GHz side of the spectrum, specifically 5.150-5.350 GHz.

      Thus, police radar should never affect Wi-Fi, and vice versa.

    • Re:Who wins? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by eXtro ( 258933 )
      Other people have mentioned that police radar isn't in military bands. There are laws against polluting the spectrum, so legally nobody should be building transmitters that emulate military radar. Since these are military frequencies there are most likely additional laws prohibiting it.


      Somebody will argue that this still opens the door to purposely jamming signals, which is true, but if you're willing to break the law there are already a lot of ways to do it.

    • Re:Who wins? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No,no, and no. Radar is a single frequency(most of the time) and hence a narrow bandwidth. The wireless units would be very easy to make so they don't transmit on a preditermined frenquency when it is active. They already do that for colision detection. The WIFI unit will still work; just not on that channel. Police radar is not near the ISM band. So it should have no effect on this change in operation. If it did they would have been at the barganing table too. DOS'ing your WIFI is not a concern of the military, that's YOUR problem. These WIFI units are FCC part 15; menning that if someone(with a leagle transmitter )interfears with your transmission then you have NO recource. But if you interfear with some one else on the ISM band that has a higher FCC Part XX licence(Part 15 is the lowest licence) then YOUR responsible to fix it before you can transmit again. That is if the FCC raid on your house/shop leaves you with any equiptment to use afterwards.

      BTW: I just know a little about this. I would do a search on google for -- ISM licence 802.11b "part15" -- and see what you get

      IKICS- IKnowICan'tSpell.

  • What about military use? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shekondar ( 600087 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:26AM (#5215499)
    I guess this means the military won't be using 802.11 anytime soon... It would be a little tough for them to use it if their own radars keep turning it off!

  • Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MrBadbar ( 168841 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:27AM (#5215501)
    Saddam: "I wonder how close those Americans are... I know, break out the access points!"

  • hmmm.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:29AM (#5215510) Journal
    Isn't that a little dangerous for military secrecy? I mean, anyone can now take a wireless transmitter and modify it to detect military radar. As technology grows more and more connected, will we someday see people remotely using the cellphone transmitter on a military base or any sensitive area in order to look for flaws and holes in radar coverage? Just a thought.

    • Re:hmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:39AM (#5215563) Homepage Journal
      If people can easily modifiy consumer equipment to detect these radar signature, than no foreign nation is going to have trouble building someing that does exactly the same thing. In fact most nations already do build devices like this, especially on fighter planes. Most of them are much more sophisticated, featuring much better sensitivity than consumer equipment along with direction finding ability (there are even missiles that seek on RADAR emissions).

      Personally, I'm estatic over the prospect of expanding the total number of completely independent channels from three to five or six.
      • (there are even missiles that seek on RADAR emissions).

        In other news, President Bush just deployed 500 linksys wireless access points for a "Missle Defense Shield". The project was estimated to cost $20 Billion.

    • Re:hmmm.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by $nyper ( 83319 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:47AM (#5215603) Homepage
      "Isn't that a little dangerous for military secrecy?" ---Bendebecker---

      Nope, the ability and technology to detect radar has been around for along time, decades. The most comon example of this technology in found military aircraft where it is used to determine whether or not the aircraft is being tracked by radar. Most governments have this capability but the biggest tactical factor just depends on the level of their technology.

      For example Iraqi ground mobile anti-aircraft missiles facilities are usually not able to aquire radar target on a U.S. F-15 and shoot it down before the U.S. F-15 can detect the source of the radar transmission and blow it up. This is not always the case as the Iraqi's have been desperately trying to aquire new technologies which sometimes allows them to get off a lucky shot. It all depends on the level of their technology.
    • Isn't that a little dangerous for military secrecy? I mean, anyone can now take a wireless transmitter and modify it to detect military radar.

      Get yourself a spectrum analyzer instead.

      If you have access to the required tools, it has always been easy to discover RF transmission. Many of these tools are now becoming consumer devices. When software radio matures, a simple software upgrade would suffice to discover and recognize radar and other RF transmissions.

      What I'm more worried about is that US military radar evidently is so sensitive and fragile that even a low powered signal in the 5GHz range can knock it out - I honestly thought their stuff was designed to handle military grade ECM but it sounds like they can't even handle consumer grade wifi equipment.
      • What I'm more worried about is that US military radar evidently is so sensitive and fragile that even a low powered signal in the 5GHz range can knock it out - I honestly thought their stuff was designed to handle military grade ECM but it sounds like they can't even handle consumer grade wifi equipment.

        It's all a question of power. In friendly territory (ie, in the middle of a US city) they probably don't want to use too much power, just for the sake of avoiding complaints; but they'll still want to have functioning radar for navigational purposes. In a hostile environment, they can increase the power without anyone complaining.
    • a wireless transmitter and modify it to detect military radar.

      Detecting military, or any other radar is pretty damn easy. Radar is like a torch in a dark forest, the user uses the relected waves to see things. However, someone at the other end of the forest will be able to see the wave source long before the user detects them with it. People have been doing this for quite some time now.

      Missles like the HARM use radar emissions to target in on the objective, much like I described with the torch. Ideal for taking our SAM stations.

      When it comes to front line fighting, the military tries to limit emissions on their equipment. So much so, most modern planes don't use their radar most of the time. This is where AWACs comes in; the massive radar dome on top of that beast can pick up things from long away, better than any set on a fighter. The data from the radar is shared with the fighters, who get the benefit without any emissions of their own. The goal of Stealth technology is to have less than zero emissions, that is, don't give any of your own out, and absorb and redirect any radar that is pointed at you.

      What is more worrying to me is the ability for the consumer equipment to automatically shut down if there is a military user on the same band. How easy can you make a DOS attack?

      And what I find very enticing is to use a similar detection system, this time watching for normal emissions from police vehicles. Especially the traffic ones! I'm not talking about looking out for speed detection stuff, by that point it's too late. There must be something that their radio/GPS or any of the other new cool toys they have that is out there, waiting to be detected! ;-)

  • Lawrence Lessig's Position (Score:5, Interesting)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:33AM (#5215532) Homepage Journal
    A chapter in Lawrence Lessig's latest book, The Future of Ideas, covers the topic of spectrum as a controlled commons. Many feel with modern technology it should be de-regulated and simply sold to any of the highest bidders. Interference with military transmissions has been one key arguing point. His book discusses it well and raises the argument for easing government control of the spectrum commons. I highly recommend the book for anyone interesting in the ideas of the internet as a commons and how it should or should not be controlled.

  • Should be interesting (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jcoy42 ( 412359 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:35AM (#5215543) Homepage Journal
    I live just over a mile from DMAFB, and I can't help but wonder how well my in-house wireless will react to this. I'm less than 300 ft. from a road military vehicles frequent, although presumably without radar turned on.

    Perhaps it's time to grab an 802.11g access point before they are all military radar friendly. Or will the long term result be a ban on non-friendly access points?

    I suppose time will tell. It has a habit of doing that.
    • If the previous post is correct, then the real deal involves 802.11a which is in the 5 Ghz range, not 802.11b or 802.11g.

      Now if I could just get it to stop interferring with my 2.4 Ghz phone....
      • This could prove to be somewhat of a fallback for Wi-Fi. Currently, the 2.4 GHz 802.11b and 802.11g standards seem to be doing very well. Much has been said about the 5 GHz 802.11a being a standard that would hold for the long run.

        802.11a, at 5 GHz, is limited in coverage range. Throughput drops off sharply at the edge as well.

        The resolution calls for almost doubling the 5 GHz bandwidth, while leaving 2.4 GHz the same. There is also no radio or antenna compatability between 2.4 and 5 GHz.

        I can see this taking our beloved "Wi-Fi Metropolitan Area Networks" and turning them into Wi-Fi lans. Something the government would probably like.

        Consarnd it!
  • You probably don't need a souped up access point to detect radar. By nature of the system, active broadcasting, anyone with a RF meter can find it. Just set it to the proper frequency, and you are set.

  • help (Score:2, Funny)

    by jda487 ( 646991 )
    if the army takes away my wireless, how will i play America's Army online?
    • Not to worry, since you have installed and played the game, we have already the information we need from your computer.

      Thank you for your cooperation.
      NSA

  • sounds great (Score:2, Interesting)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 )
    This seems like a win-win situation -- it doesn't have many technical details, but since the radar and WiFi spectrums overlap only somewhat, i'm guessing that WiFi devices will simply use the NON-overlapping spectrum with some safe zone when they detect radar. Which makes sense anyways, since interference would work on both the radar and the WiFi. It may reduce range or data rates but this seems like a pretty good way to solve the problem without having to get congress or the FCC involved. And adding more spectrum in the 2.4Ghz range might solve a lot more range/bandwidth problems than just those of military radar.
    • And adding more spectrum in the 2.4Ghz range might solve a lot more range/bandwidth problems than just those of military radar.

      True, but that's not part of the agreement.

      The bill proposes opening up an additional 255MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 5GHz band. A 300MHz slice of the 5GHz band is being used for wireless networking, while only 83MHz of spectrum is being used in the 2.4GHz band.

      Even if the Bill is passed, 802.11a and 802.11g (which are in the 2.4GHz band) will still only have 3 usable channels. 802.11a (which in in the 5 GHz band) will almost double in number of channels.

  • FCC, Congress and the Commerce Department. (Score:3)

    by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @11:56AM (#5215640) Journal
    Anything that keeps the existing big money players in place will be fine, but anything that smacks of increasing freedoms of speech and fair use --AKA market disruption-- will get the smack down from one or another federal agency. Commerce recently advised the FCC to ban the import of 802.11a devices intended for outdoor use citing air traffic concerns. Reaching an accord with the Pentagon is nice, but it's a small battle in a much larger war.

  • Upcoming .. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @12:04PM (#5215670) Homepage


    Which electronic magazine (or Phrack ?) will be the first to publish "Build your own WiFi scrambler/silencer for under 20 bucks" article.

  • So basically... (Score:3)

    by Billy Bo Bob ( 87919 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @12:08PM (#5215684)
    The military will have the ability to shut down any wireless network by a simple transmission.

    Sweet. For them anyway....
    • More likely the AP will stop using overlapping channels or reduce the power in those freqency bands...
    • If you look up the frequencies that military radars and various consumer electronics use, you'll find many overlaps. So the military already has to be careful. For example, certain Navy radars use the same frequency band that cellphones use. When Navy ships are close to shore they are required to significantly reduce the amount of power they use to avoid interference. One of the most difficult jobs in the military is frequency management to prevent such interference.
  • I can just see the spam in Sadam's mailbox. Radar jammer for under a hundred dollars.

    Doesn't anybody find this totally rediculous? A low powered device that barely goes through a brick wall, that supposedly interferes with military radar that's designed to deal with jamming in the megawatt range. So are we going to ask our enemys to please not use WiFi equipment? Does that mean civilian radar works better?

    Or is this Bush doing the telcoms a favor? Who wants all that competition anyway? ;-)

    Yes I know, totally paranoid. But WiFi interferring with military radar???
    • the problem isn't a single device jamming a radar. It won't. A point jammer isn't going to be much of a concern, because the direction is obvious.

      What the military are concerned with is millions of such devices in the area of a radar raising the noise floor. It's a collective effect, rather than a jammer. To build an effective jammer, the jamming signals would need to be coming from all directions simultaneously.

    • I think you are missing the point here. The military doesn't want civilian WiFi interfering with radar in any shape or form to keep nasty things from happening, ie planes colliding, messed up radar guided ILS landing, etc. They also don't want to have to deal with any "ghosting" (I just made that term up so don't whale on me for misusing it) in case of a suicide attack or something similar.

      Of course our enemies are going to do their best to cause harm to military aircraft. I don't mind giving up a few bands on the spectrum to help insure there isn't an accident (figher plane crashing into my house and the like.
      • That's the whole point. If WiFi stations (one or thousands) cause trouble, then the radar needs to be fixed. Nothing would be cheaper than building a couple million WiFi-like white noise transmitters and scattering them around a city. All for what, maybe five bucks a piece for the deluxe version, with parts readily available at Radio Shack. Even worse, you can knock out a single transmitter, but what about thousands or millions of them. If this is really a problem, then the military needs to stop whining and fix it.

        Trying to stop the WiFi bandwagon might help us bomb Utah, but it won't work anywhere else. So why try? Well, the way I see it, there are three possibilities:

        1) It really is a problem. In that case, the genius who provided the enemy with a recipe for jamming U.S. military radar should be court-martialed and sent away for good. And one can only hope that a solution will be found soon.

        2) Some guy at the Dept. of Defense Office of Red Tape and Job Security read a report about some background noise coming from WiFi equipment, and in light of the general hysteria about anything security, decided to take full advantage. In that case, somebody should clue him (yes a him, women aren't that stupid, are they?) in on the fact that it's making the U.S. military look stupid, and that is not good when you want to frighten people in other countries.

        3) It's a shameless attempt to knock down the pesky WiFi competition, and the Phone Company did it--or rather the politicians on their payroll.

        Any other options? Maybe this should be /. poll. ;-)

  • This might be a plus (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gregg M ( 2076 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @12:46PM (#5215876) Homepage
    With thousands of Wi Fi transmitters around, couldn't the military use passive radar technology?

    You need to send out a pulse of radio waves to capture the echo off of metal objects. If there are enough transmitters out there you might not need to send a pulse. You might be able to read the echo off of objects using the thousands of transmitters around it. You'd be able to use radar but keep your emissions to zero!
    • With thousands of Wi Fi transmitters around, couldn't the military use passive radar technology?

      Yes, because at no point in the Iraqi desert or the mountains of Afghanistan are you more than a few hundred feet from a wireless access point.

  • Investigate Best Buy! (Score:4, Funny)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @12:46PM (#5215877)
    reducing the interference on military radars by Wi-Fi equipment

    Investigate Best Buy! It's kind of pathetic when all Saddam and the rest of the United States' enemies need to do is pop down to Best Buy and buy a wireless hub to protect themselves from the military might of world's largest army.

    All the Iraqi airforce needs to do now is jetison wireless hubs and GeForce FX cards and they'll be immune to both radar and heat-seeking missiles.

    What's next? CAT-5 cable found to defeat stealth technology?
    • Did it occur to anyone else that the military have probably thought about this and there is more to the article than just the blurb?

      Perhaps the Slashback story could read: 'US Military agree to technology restriction which makes their enemies impossible to defeat. Luckily, some guy on Slashdot notices!'

      hmph.

    • [...] buy a wireless hub to protect themselves from the military might of world's largest army.

      That would, probably, be China's...

  • At what threshold? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chinobis ( 640631 )
    The vast majority of earth's landmass is covered by military radars, most of the times by a multitude of radars overlapping each other. Many of those radars have a radius that exceed some hundreds of miles. Now, wherever someone fires up a future wifi-card, it WILL pick up those distant signals, so, will there be a threshold involved that overrides the whole "detect radar" thingie, or will wifi cards all over the planet stop working just because they detect a radar 500 miles away?
    • U.S. military radars are pointed out of the U.S., to detect aircraft and missiles coming into the country. See for example the BMEWS radars that are located in Greenland, Alaska, and England. Or look at the radar Bush authorized for Star Wars, it will be built in Alaska and pointed at places like N. Korea. You don't waste time looking for ballistic missile launches in your own country. You presume that Kansas is NOT going to attack New York.

      The FAA is responsible for air coverage within the U.S., they assume aircraft want to be tracked. The limitations associated with this were apparent on 9/11. The FAA lost track of the fourth hijacked aircraft because it descended below radar coverage.

      For those who say Saddam can buy a radar detector at Best Buy, this is no big deal. Radar is radio waves, all you need to build is a radio to detect radar. This technology is about a hundred years old. Furthermore, Saddam can buy radar warning detectors on the open market. He can also buy radar jammers. Many countries build and sell them. See for example the recent stories about GPS jammers that he supposedly has.

      The real problem is what to do with radar warning receivers and jammers. Say you detect a radar. If you jam it, the enemy knows he has been detected and can take evasive action. If you do nothing, you leave yourself vulnerable to attack. There are even more complications with missiles such as HARM that can home on radar and jammer emissions. Do you leave the radar on and let a missile guide right to you? If you turn it off, you're blind.

  • The article says none of that! (Score:5, Informative)

    by djrogers ( 153854 ) on Monday February 03, 2003 @01:19PM (#5216069)

    Basically, future wireless equipment will detect the presence of military radar and not transmit over the top of it. Additionally, as part of the compromise, defense officials will endorse the doubling of the number of allowed wireless frequencies--thus opening more spectrum to wireless users


    All of the above is supposition on the submitter's part, and NONE of it is referenced in teh article. First of all, the article says

    a resolution that establishes a new radio frequency threshold for products using unlicensed radio spectrum--primarily Wi-Fi products
    >
    Nothing about 'detecting' military radar, and nothing about shutting down transmission when it does. Next up we have Pentagon endorsement of the Boxer/Allen Broaband Jumpstart Act which will open up an add'l 255MHz in the 5GHz band. Well, the article doesn't say anything about that either - all we've got is this quote:

    "Now that this technical issue has been resolved, Congress should proceed to enact the Boxer-Allen bill,"

    Which is from One of the bill's sponsors (Boxer) - not the DOD!

    Oh, and just in case you were wondering - None of this applies to existing 2.4GHz wireless gear...
    • ok, so maybe it doesn't say anything in the article about detecting radar, but that is what it is.

      Here's the deal - there has been a long running dispute between the military and industry on this issue. At issue for some time has not been whether Wi-Fi should switch channel on detecting a radar, but what the detection threshold is. Bear in mind that the pulses you're looking for are extremely weak at the periphery of range of the radar. The DoD originally wanted WLANs to vacate the channel on detecting a radar-like signal at a level of -67dBm or greater (that's pretty weak, and there was a major issue of false detection).

      The new proposal requires a detection threshold of -62dBm for WLANs transmitting less than 200mW, or -64dBm for WLANs transmitting between 200mW and 1W. In return for industry support at these levels, the DoD is prepared to supporting freeing up some extra 5GHz spectrum to give WLANs more channels.

      And no, none of this applies to 2.4GHz. That's beacause there are no radars there, and there's no extra spectrum in the vicinity that isn't already spoken for.

    • Showoff. Since when does anyone read the article?
  • Let me get this straight: new 802.11 equipment (typical output: 1 watt) is going to shut the hell up whenever it detects military radar transmsisions (typical output: 1 kilowatt).

    What the hell for? Wouldn't radar signals squelch the hell out of any wi-fi carrier around? Even if wi-fi did manage to interfere with military radar, how can you confuse a weak, intermittent signal (wi-fi is spread-spectrum, remember) with a radar return?

    Of course, as for the newly-created vulnerability of wireless access points to radar noise...I'm sure that homeland security (and other unsavory types) would *never* use this feature irresponsibly....say, in order to disrupt a potential terrorist's communications.

    I'm equally sure that no enterprising young hacker out there with some basic RF skills would *ever* produce a wi-fi jamming device that mimicked the signature of military radar, but with much less amplification.
  • "No one is entirely happy, and that's the essence of compromise," Intel spokesman Peter Pitsch said.
  • There's a certain { amount of spectrum | number of machines } which neither you (the comsumer) nor I (the government) can easily use.

    Let's make a deal: I'll recommend that you be allowed to use { that spectrum | those machines } as long as you { agree to abandon it | give me the root password } whenever I demand it. Sounds like a good deal to you?

    While it may seem like a good way to get more spectrum for "unlicensed" (i.e.: first come, first served) uses, what this really amounts to is trading the limited "level-playing-field" spectrum for a bit more spectrum which can be shut down by military (or other governmental) interests at any time.

    So before you jump on the "this is great" bandwagon, think carefully; what will be the checks and balances to prevent a shutdown by the military for non-military reasons? Will access to the this spectrum be considered a guaranteed right (ala Free Speech) of a privlege granted at the pleasure of whatever administration happens to be in power at the moment?

  • We won't have a civilized world until the military stops interfering with Wi-Fi, not the other way around.
  • When the idea of 2.4GHz wi-fi interfering with military radar was first posted, it was clearly absurd. Cellphones emmit much more radiation on the same spectrum, and microwave ovens leak yet more still....

    So does this mean that future phones and ovens will be designed to stop working when they receive a military radar signal, or is it the case of them singling out wi-fi for some strange reason?
  • Future Iraqi WiFi devices will detect the presence of military radar and tune their frequency spectrum to transmit on top of it as much as possible.

    How is releasing technical details that make this possible a good idea?
  • It seems to me that military communications needs to exist in hostile environments. One theater of modern warfare is electronic - both active and countermeaures. What does it say about the robustness of military communications that it is easily interfered with by civilians are not even hostile? Sure, pass those regulations but then enemy will be ready with adjusted equipment to wipe out that communication when it needs to.

    The DoD needs to shutup about this and fix it's stuff so that is can stand the heat of the kitchen and be battle ready transparent to us all.

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