A research team at Canada's University of Waterloo has developed a small device called Wi-Peep. Mounted on a drone it gives it the ability to see through building walls. I link the study here.
The aircraft equipped with Wi-Peep becomes a sort of "electronic bat" that locates (with reasonable precision) all the WiFi stations within its range of action.
See through walls with WiFi
The Wi-Peep capability exploits a known technological weakness of wireless modems: the so-called “WiFi Polite”. In practice, even if a network is protected by a password, a modem always responds automatically to contact attempts from any other device that "interpellates" it.
Wi-Peep does just that: as it flies, it sends several messages to different WiFi hubs and then measures the response time of each, allowing it to identify the location of hubs (including those beyond the walls) within just one meter.
What can it do?
“Wi-Peep devices can, in fact, see through walls,” reiterates Dr But Abedi, who led the research. “using similar technology, for example, it is possible to track with one or more drones the movements of security guards inside a bank by following the location of their phones or smartwatches.”
Similarly, a thief could identify the location and type of smart devices in a home. Including, of course, the security cameras. Using it through a drone would also ensure the ability to operate remotely. Ok: at the moment I don't get any "beneficial" applications. Indeed, one.
Test the vulnerabilities of our systems
Not a bad idea, right? It would be a super-fast diagnostic tool, and I imagine this is a useful and legal way to use it. After all, the very “polite” nature of the Polite WiFi needs to be corrected somehow.
And a valuable “flying advisor” like Wi-Peep can contribute to designing better protocols.
At the end of the treatment they also suggested short-term solutions to secure our networks.
With great powers comes great responsibilities.
