Power

Researchers Have Developed a Way To Wirelessly Charge Vehicles On the Road (jalopnik.com) 146

Posted by BeauHD from the no-cables-required dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Jalopnik: [R]esearchers at Cornell University, led by Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Khurram Afridi, have developed technology that would allow vehicles to be charged on the road while in motion. It would essentially turn U.S. roadways into wireless chargers. Afrindi says he has been working on the tech for the last seven years. Here's how it would work, according to Afrindi via Business Insider: "'Highways would have a charging lane, sort of like a high occupancy lane,' Afridi told Insider. 'If you were running out of battery you would move into the charging lane. It would be able to identify which car went into the lane and it would later send you a bill.' The science behind Afridi's project goes back over 100 years to Nikola Tesla, the inventor who used alternating electric fields to power lights without plugging them in. Afridi's technology would embed special metal plates in the road that are connected to a powerline and a high frequency inverter. The plates will create alternating electric fields that attract and repel a pair of matching plates attached to the bottom of the EV.No need to worry about stopping to charge unless you're down for the night. They have run into a problem, however. They can't seem to find the parts that can handle the high levels of power needed to charge vehicles enough while they are in motion. It would have to be a material that's not only weatherproof but able to withstand high voltage and heat from the passing vehicles."
Wireless Networking

Tech Industry Quietly Patches FragAttacks Wi-Fi Flaws That Leak Data, Weaken Security (theregister.com) 37

Posted by BeauHD from the fragging-made-dangerous dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: A dozen Wi-Fi design and implementation flaws make it possible for miscreants to steal transmitted data and bypass firewalls to attack devices on home networks, according to security researcher Mathy Vanhoef. On Tuesday, Vanhoef, a postdoctoral researcher in computer security at New York University Abu Dhabi, released a paper titled, "Fragment and Forge: Breaking Wi-Fi Through Frame Aggregation and Fragmentation" [PDF]. Scheduled to be presented later this year at the Usenix Security conference, the paper describes a set of wireless networking vulnerabilities, including three Wi-Fi design flaws and nine implementation flaws. Vanhoef, who in 2017 along with co-author Frank Piessens identified key reinstallation attacks (KRACKs) on the WPA2 protocol (used to secure Wi-Fi communication), has dubbed his latest research project FragAttacks, which stands for fragmentation and aggregation attacks.

The dozen vulnerabilities affect all Wi-Fi security protocols since the wireless networking technology debuted in 1997, from WEP up through WPA3. [...] In total, 75 devices -- network card and operating system combinations (Windows, Linux, Android, macOS, and iOS) -- were tested and all were affected by one or more of the attacks. NetBSD and OpenBSD were not affected because they don't support the reception of A-MSDUs (aggregate MAC service data units). [...]

Patches for many affected devices and software have already been deployed, thanks to a nine-month-long coordinated responsible disclosure overseen by the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI). Linux patches have been applied and the kernel mailing list note mentions that Intel has addressed the flaws in a recent firmware update without mentioning it. Microsoft released its patches on March 9, 2021 when disclosure was delayed tho Redmond had already committed to publication. Vanhoef advises checking with the vendor(s) of Wi-Fi devices about whether the FragAttacks have been addressed. "[F]or some devices the impact is minor, while for others it's disastrous," he said.

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