[singlepic id=137 w=150 h=150 float=right]I’m not sure what to think about this article I read today on BBC News. Even the title scared me: “anti-Wi-Fi paint keeps your wireless signal to yourself“. I’m myself a fan of technology and innovations which can help us improve our every day’s life. However I don’t know if this anti wi-fi paint really “offers security” as stated by the BBC.
According to the author of the original article on Yahoo! Tech, the idea is simple: “Use a special paint on walls where you don’t want wireless to pass through. The secret is mixing aluminum-iron oxide particles in with the paint. The metal particles resonate at the same frequency as Wi-Fi and other radio waves, so signals can’t pass through the thin layer of pigment. Outsiders would simply be unable to access your wireless network, just as you, inside the house, won’t be able to interlope on anything beamed on the outside.”
So the aim of this innovation, according to researchers, is to offer “more security”. But for whom? For those who pay their Internet bill every month? Personally, I wouldn’t feel so comfortable working in a place where radio waves bounce around me, and the first picture which comes to my mind when I think about such a room, is a BIG microwave…
But that’s not all engineer have in mind. “He hopes that soon the technology could be woven into clothing. We’re not sure about the true effects of electromagnetic waves, in this range, on the human body. We’re assuming that excessive exposure could be bad for us. Therefore we’re trying to make protective clothes for young children or pregnant women to help protect their bodies from such waves.”
Hmm. “Not sure about the true effects of electromagnetic waves on the human body”. Is that supposed to be reassuring? That’s a good thing though that researchers assume “that excessive exposure [to those waves] could be bad for us.”
So if I got it well, you guys are going to develop special clothing for people – let’s say those who will work in facilities where walls will have been covered with anti wifi paint – to protect them from wifi radio waves.
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Clever.
But maybe this time we’ll owe our salvation to our companies’ finance department as “having to redecorate a building in order to provide Wi-Fi security is more costly and complex than the security functionality available in even the cheapest of Wi-Fi access points…”. When considering it, life doesn’t suck that much.
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Sources: BBC News and Yahoo!Tech
I actually used to melt gummi bears in the microwave when I was little…