New MIT research opens door for password-free Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi passwords aren't only a nuisance; in many cases, they're not even enough to actually protect the network from intruders. 

But new research from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory might make Wi-Fi safer while at the same time eliminating the need for passwords altogether. 

The team led by Professor Dina Katabi devised a system called Chronos, which enables a Wi-Fi access point to precisely pinpoint all the adapters connected to it. This tech could be used to grant access to a Wi-Fi router based on the user's exact location, making it much harder to an intruder to access the network from a remote place.

The tech could be used to grant access to a Wi-Fi router based on the user's exact location

Chronos works by calculating the time it takes for data to travel from the user to the access point, stitching measurements from many Wi-Fi bands to make the results more precise. Researchers say it’s 20 times more accurate than existing techniques. 

Testing Chronos in a typical home, researchers were able to identify the location of a user (i.e. which room he or she was in) 94% of the time. In a coffee shop scenario, the system was able to distinguish between users from within the store and intruders from outside 97% of the time. 

Besides controlling who can access a Wi-Fi network, the system could also be used to make sure drones maintain a safe distance from people, as seen in the video above, or finding a lost device. 

The system is not without challenges, one of them being privacy: The system could be used as yet another way to track one's location. But any technology that has the potential to increase Wi-Fi security should be given a chance in our book. 

Read the research paper here. 

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