Greedy hackers can hog Wi-Fi bandwidth
Greedy computer hackers using open-source Linux machines could steal more than their fair share of bandwidth from Wi-Fi hotspots, Swiss computer scientists have warned.
At the MobiSys 2004 conference in Boston, Massachusetts on Monday, Imad Aad, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, outlined how changing just one line of code in the Linux operating system could allow hackers to monopolise the bandwidth at hotspots using the 802.11 standard.
As some hotels charge up to a $1 per minute for Wi-Fi access, the problem could become unfairly expensive for users who do not cheat, he says.
He also demonstrated a software tool that would allow Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPS) to detect such greedy behaviour within a third of a second, by sniffing the rates of data exchange between users and the access point.
WISPs could fine greedy users or cut them off the network, he explains. Aad and his colleagues have applied for a patent on the tool, called DOMINO.
