A lick of paint could stop Wi-Fi leeching neighbours
Home decoration and technology doesn’t usually sit well together, but here’s an idea from boffins at the University of Tokyo who have come up with an aluminium-iron oxide paint that can absorb the electromagnetic waves at frequencies typically used by Wi-Fi.
In other words, painting your walls with this stuff could stop your wireless signal from leaking into neighbouring houses.
Interesting concept, but surely it would be much simpler to install some basic security on the wireless router?
Other problems I can foresee include the fact that, unless you paint your windows as well, the signal will still be able to escape to the outside world. Maybe your neighbour won’t nick your broadband, but that guy sitting outside in the battered old white van might.
Secondly, Wi-Fi signals rarely travel in a straight line and may bounce around your home before they make it to your laptop. If your walls start absorbing these signals, you could end up with a very weak signal to work with.
Thirdly, that’s a lot of effort required. I don’t relish the thought of painting all the walls in my house.
(Via CrunchGear)
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One thought on “A lick of paint could stop Wi-Fi leeching neighbours”
I quite like the idea of painting one’s enemy’s laptop with it. How good if that stopped any signal or better still meant they had to use it with the disc drive open?
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