from the next-up-will-be-AM/FM/shortwave-radio dept.
Terrorists have been caught strapping Wi-Fi-activated backup triggers to bombs in Indonesia, police claimed this week.
The explosives were discovered in a raid earlier this month, and included a switching mechanism that enabled them to be detonated using a signal sent via Wi-Fi if the main trigger, which uses a SIM card and waits for a mobile phone message to detonate, was blocked by radio-frequency jammers.
"With that, he can put [the bombs] in some backpacks, and later he would just detonate them from a distance of 1km, for example," said Brigadier-General Dedi Prasetyo at a press conference, according to The Strait Times.
...
Even though Wi-Fi will not travel as far as some cellphone signals, the police said that a careful construction of routers and amplifiers can extend the range as far as one kilometer. Which, while it may be news to people that deal with dead spots in their own house, is alarming to security forces trying to secure large areas full of people.
It might be fun to try infrasound, too.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday May 21 2019, @10:28PM
Connect to Network: Kaboom!
Password: SilenceIKeelYou!
I would think a Raspi with wifi connected to a battery and a high signal to a circuit with a relay would be a very reliable method if one could connect to it from the other side.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @10:47PM (2 children)
They could blow things up from more than 1km. Allah Akhbar!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:10PM (1 child)
RFC 1149 and a handful of birdseed and they'll have their caliphate in no time at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:46PM
You leave Morpheus out of this.
(Score: 1) by Frosty Piss on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:08PM
All your bombs are belonging to me!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:19PM (1 child)
Why don't they set it up whenever they get a signal on the police frequency? That way nobody has to wait around to set it off.
I know! Mines are banned by international agreement.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:29PM
Did you have to remind me that the US is once again in great company, on the list of countries refusing to sign the ban ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Ottawa_Treaty#Non-signatory_states [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:21PM (3 children)
1km Wi-Fi ?
The only way to fix the problem will be to ban, and then arrest all people in possession of, any Pringles cans.
Only a man with a Lays Classic bag can foil a man with a Pringles can !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @01:07AM (2 children)
DIY [ab9il.net] a helical antenna [wikipedia.org] to get around the ban on pringles cans (which are ill-suited for 2.4GHz anyway).
Next, they'll have to ban PVC pipes, say goodbye to sanitation and fresh water on tap.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 22 2019, @10:38AM
Britain has banned spoons. Anything is possible.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @05:09PM
thx 4 link. bai!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @11:28PM (1 child)
Do any of you know who's behind this? I can't seem to get a working WiFi signal across 10 meters!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday May 22 2019, @02:24PM
I'm not saying it's Aliens, but . . . (It's Aliens!)
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday May 22 2019, @12:01AM
Look around, figure out what is cheap and hackable, and cheaply hack it.
Your solution to that is......?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday May 22 2019, @12:05AM (4 children)
If only Wi-Fi jammers existed ... oh wait they do! They also work fine and jamming wi-fi is not really hard. This is clearly contrary to what the article claims where it apparently is some kind of james bond-esque next generation technology. But just with the normal stuff available over at say AliExpress, the range is usually not that great but 10m or so should be enough, one can easily imagine the overengineered stuff the police and military should have access to.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 22 2019, @12:51AM (1 child)
Yeah, there are abunch of questions that spring to mind about that article.
For example, the headline
Related articles:
Oh, really?
Also:
Oh, really?
So are these terrorists still going to be terrorists after they manage to overthrow the corrupt, brutal Indonesian government?
The Acehnise, Balinese and Papuans might wind up being freedom fighters, if they can convince the US to stop supporting Widodo. (Fat chance).
Indonesia is an empire, and all empires break up sooner or later.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @01:11AM
Until the future comes, be careful what you wish for today [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday May 22 2019, @06:03AM (1 child)
Yeah, but Indonesia uses WiFi frequencies used nowhere else on earth, so the jammers don't work. From the article:
No idea how you'd jam Indonesia's amazing 900MHz Wifi, or 3.6GHz WiFi, with a 2.4/5GHz jammer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @10:17AM
I don't see how it should be more difficult to jam those other frequencies. As long as you can send a signal on those frequencies, you also can send noise on them.