Paint made in Japan blocks Wi-Fi

This might be unneighborly, since it'd mean that your nosy neighbors can't piggyback off your wireless connection anymore.

But for the price of a can of house paint, this may very well be one of the most cost-effective ways to secure your office wireless network against hackers and freeloaders, particularly in a time of thrift.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have blended paint with aluminium iron oxide, which has been found to resonate at the same frequencies used by Wi-Fi, thus canceling out any electromagnetic waves in that frequency. It sounds like really cool Minority Report stuff.

Of course, it's only bound to attract the attention of every hacker out there who can't resist a challenge. And it reduces your chances of receiving love notes like this.

(Via Crave Asia)

[checodaman]

Really only good for apartment dwellers, I use my lappy outside on the patio and lawn all the time...how bout try a password?

[Kobinator]

I'll keep thermite off of my walls, thank you.

[Fractal42]

You're right, Aluminum-Iron oxide = Thermite. Just imagine a fire near the paint...

[b_baggins]

Sigh. It's only thermite when the chemicals are in the proper ratio.

[Neal99]

Thermite requires a temperature much higher than a normal house fire, which is why magnesium ribbon is recommended for lighting it... I doubt that this paint would be a hazard and as b_baggins said, it must be in a proper ratio.

[BenzTech]

Or you could just hide your SSID or use MAC filtering.
Saves a lot of drop cloths and cleanup....

[DarkHawke]

Neither one of those works. Use WPA and a good un-guessable, not-in-the-dictionary password. It's the only way to be sure.

[cabrillo24]

Hiding SSID, WPA/WPA2, MAC Filtering....costs for these solutions = $0. I don't see how a gallon of "wifi" paint is cost effective, seeing its at least $27, and probably will be at a premium so I'm saying $40 for a gallon. Anyone who's ever painted the inside of their homes knows you need about 2 gallons for a good sized room. Epic fail.

[fooldog01]

Yeah, bad idea for anyone who goes outside with their laptop.

[Rick Cavaretti]

No joke: We once had a receptionist who had a fear of aluminum foil. She claimed, that if she touched the foil, she could hear voices from 'them'. Those 'them' in question were the aliens talking to her. She once refused to answer the phone after we wrapped the handle in aluminum. This paint would make a very useful personal torture device in her case...

[og_gta]

lmao

[Wak_Em]

...do you paint your windows too?

[Jonnygthedrummer]

lol

just the vista kind

[Jasper1675]

I wonder how long they spent developing this product, and with one simple question you made their product obsolete. I just can't stop laughing at that question some Japanese scientist is looking at his research partner thinking how are we going to explain this to our boss.

[robocoprobert]

This is the smartest comment among this bunch.

[U. Tripps]

In an apartment building, windows are not likely to be a conduit of WiFi piggybacking. Your building neighbors live on the other side of a wall, not the other side of a window. Of course, if that window opens to a narrow alley with another building on the other side, then...

[Shaun822]

What about cell phone signals? Does this act like a Faraday cage or does it just hide wi-fi? And like others have said I'm personally all set with painting thermite on my walls (although it might be different concentrations of chemicals than thermite).

[halflinggray]

Well, it might but the article states that it works by resonating on the same frequiencies used by wifi. For most of us, that's 2.4 ghz. GSM phones work on 850, 900, 1900, and 2100 mhz. So not likely. This will cause issues with a lot of home consumer electronicxs, though. Bluetooth, baby monitors, and cordless phones just to name a few.

[Shaun822]

That's what I thought but I don't know nearly enough about wireless data transfer to be able to form a concrete opinion.

[iff2mastamatt]

Or you can live in a house with an aluminum roof?

[kcopen]

or you can simply add a wpa password to your network. I think that might be a little easier and cost-effective then repainting your whole house.

[clem_cowsie]

Um yeah, but what about the environment? And I'd rather not cover my walls in rust, thank you very much.
Adding security features to your wireless connection is far more cost-effective and eco.

[U. Tripps]

First of all, there are now a few different frequencies of WiFi access point available. Does this block all of them? Doubtful. And certainly not for long.

I would also want to know how this affects the WiFi signals within my house. If the chemical "resonates" at the frequencies used by my router, what happens to my own signal. I don't need more interference. Thanks.