Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelmachine | Hacker News Reader

Is this system not susceptible to over-the-air attacks by malicious adversaries?

If I'm understanding it correctly then the answer is not much more than our present system. You get low power consumption in your device by being parasitic on a high-power monochromatic antenna furnished by the local WiFi.

There might be interesting attacks with other high-power antennas in the region creating pockets of destructive interference -- essentially localized denial-of-service type stuff.

The other risk you're taking is something like "the operator of this antenna can induce bit flips and such in your communications," which is true, but they wouldn't know what bits they're meddling with because they have to commit to the inconsistent signal before you use it. But they can already send arbitrary local packets pretending to be you at that granularity. Certainly if we're talking about the signal source managed by the WiFi operator, there is no dispute that this doesn't empower them -- they own the router, where they already have direct control over your internet communication and what they "hear from" and "say to" you.

Compared to the threat of opening your own access points with a suggestive name and just letting people connect to you, which you can also do with this range, being able to meddle with packets in a haphazard way doesn't seem very scary.

And why's it always malicious adversaries? Why can't we ever get some benevolent adversaries around here?

People want to defend against the latest threat.

Now, what on earth is a benevolent adversary?

The Drill Instructor who, as you become more capable, increases the intensity of the challenge, is a benevolent adversary.

Someone that hacks your bank account to put more money in it?

I thought of something else that is not discussed often. There is a class of actors that can do good actions with bad ulterior motives.

For example in France we had a group of anti-muslim people provide free food to the homeless but the food had specifically pork in it.

Or linked to a recent HN story a vegan terrorist could infect himself with that tick that renders you allergic to meat and then go donate blood for saving children.

Those are really interesting examples although obviously stretching the definition of "benevolent."

Do you have links to either of these stories?

Parents and other teachers who simulate and stage adversity to develop student skills.

Like the recent Internet Chemotherapy?

> Now, what on earth is a benevolent adversary?

If you find yourself a target of one, it means you're most likely evil.

(Also, in less extreme sense, I'd classify hackers as such, i.e. people exploiting systems for fun and learning, without doing any harm to anyone.)

Penetration Tester would seem to typify benevolent adversary.

Or anyone who's role it is to test the sturdiness of a system or product etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com