TECHNOLOGY
Insight
Move over Wi-Fi as info
trips the light fantastic
FLICKERING lights are annoying but
they may have an upside. Visible
light communication (VLC) uses rapid
pulses of light to transmit information
wirelessly. Now it may be ready to
compete with conventional Wi-Fi.
At the heart of this technology is
a new generation of high-brightness
light-emitting diodes, says Harald
Haas from the University of Edinburgh,
UK. Very simply, if the LED is on, you
transmit a digital 1, if its off you transmit
a 0, Haas says. They can be switched
on and off very quickly, which gives nice
opportunities for transmitting data.
It is possible to encode data in the
light by varying the rate at which the
LEDs flicker on and off to give different
strings of 1s and 0s. The LED intensity
is modulated so rapidly that human
eyes cannot notice, so the output
appears constant.
More sophisticated techniques could
dramatically increase VLC data rates.
A team at the University of Oxford is
focusing on parallel data transmission
using arrays of LEDs, where each LED
transmits a different data stream.
Other groups are using mixtures of red,
Stegobot can steal passwords
from your Facebook photos
THINK twice before uploading your
holiday pictures to Facebook you
could be helping someone to steal
information from your computer. A
botnet called Stegobot was created to
show how easy it would be for a crook
to hijack Facebook photos to create
a secret communication channel that
is very difficult to detect.
Like most botnets, Stegobot
gains control of computers by tricking
users into opening infected email
attachments or visiting suspect
websites. But rather than contacting
the botmasters directly, it piggybacks
on the infected users normal social
18 | NewScientist | 23 July 2011
green and blue LEDs to alter the lights
frequency, with each frequency
encoding a different data channel.
Li-Fi, as it has been dubbed, has
already achieved blisteringly high
speeds in the lab. Researchers at the
Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin,
Germany, have reached data rates of
network activity. If one of your friends
is a friend of a friend of the botmaster,
the information transfers hop by hop
within the social network, finally
reaching the botmasters, says Amir
Houmansadr, a computer scientist at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign who worked on the botnet.
Stegobot takes advantage of a
technique called steganography to
hide information in picture files
without changing their appearance.
It is possible to store around 50
kilobytes of data in a 720 by 720
pixel image enough to transmit
any passwords or credit card numbers
over 500 megabytes per second using
a standard white-light LED. Haas has
set up a spin-off firm to sell a consumer
VLC transmitter that is due for launch
next year. It is capable of transmitting
data at 100 MB/s faster than most
UK broadband connections.
Once established, VLC could solve
some major communication problems. In
2009, the US Federal Communications
One way to solve the bandwidth
crisis, switch to light transmission
John Rensten/getty
that Stegobot might find on your
hard drive.
The botnet inserts this information
into any photo you upload to Facebook,
and then waits for one of your friends
to look at your profile. They dont
even have to click on the photo, as
Facebook helpfully downloads files in
the background. If your friend is also
infected with the botnet quite likely,
Stegobot can hide credit
card numbers in picture
files without changing
their appearance
since any email you send them will
pass it on any photo they upload will
also pass on the stolen data.
From there, the data will eventually
make its way to the account of
Commission warned of a looming
spectrum crisis: because our mobile
devices are so data-hungry we will
soon run out of radio-frequency
bandwidth. Li-Fi could free up
bandwidth, especially as much of the
infrastructure is already in place.
There are around 14 billion light
bulbs worldwide, they just need to be
replaced with LED ones that transmit
data, says Haas. We reckon VLC is a
factor of ten cheaper than Wi-Fi.
Because it uses light rather than
radio-frequency signals, VLC could be
used safely in aircraft, integrated into
medical devices and hospitals where
Wi-Fi is banned, or even underwater,
where Wi-Fi doesnt work at all.
The time is right for VLC, I strongly
believe that, says Haas, who
presented his work at TED Global
in Edinburgh last week.
But some sound a cautious note
about VLCs prospects. It only works in
direct line of sight, for example,
although this also makes it harder to
intercept than Wi-Fi. There has been a
lot of early hype, and there are some
very good applications, says Mark
Leeson from the University of
Warwick, UK. But Im doubtful its a
panacea. This isnt technology without
a point, but I dont think it sweeps all
before it, either. Jamie Condliffe n
someone who is also friends with
the botmaster, allowing them to
extract details on your identity. The
botmasters can also send commands
to the botnet through the reverse
process uploading a photo with
hidden instructions that make their
way to infected computers.
Its scary because its virtually
undetectable, says Shishir Nagaraja
of the Indraprastha Institute of
Information Technology, New Delhi,
India, who led the project.
Marco Cova, a computer scientist
at the University of Birmingham, UK,
says that criminals could employ a
system like Stegobot, as it is hard
to detect, but other methods allow
them to steal much larger quantities
of data. Its not the most efficient or
convenient way, he says. Jacob Aron n