IEEE 802.11 wireless location and network security mechanism through fingerprint, triangulation and dynamic obstacle identification

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results obtained in the development of a security mechanism for internet access control, based on the physical location of wireless stations. To achieve such a mechanism a wireless location system was develop, so that the network infrastructure can dynamically reconfigure proxy/firewall rules. To locate the wireless stations with the precision needed in this system, two techniques was used: amplitude fingerprint and amplitude triangulation. We also build a dynamic obstacle attenuation identifier due the fact that this obstacles can interfer in the location process. The dynamic obstacles attenuation was incorporate in the location technique to achieve a better precision in this process. After identifying the wireless station, the security system can apply the security policy defined to a specific physical area. In order to validate the system, we used a academic environment with classroom based security rules. In this environment, each classroom is defined by a specific subnet and the security rules are defined by the teacher based on the class educational objectives. The wireless network is defined in a unique subnet, differing from all the classroom networks. The system goal is to apply the class-based security restrictions to all the devices physically located in the specific classroom, been either wired or wireless stations.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.3 Network Operations

General Terms:
Algorithms, Security

Keywords:
wireless location, wireless networks, wireless security