3.1 Access Point
We took a bottom up approach when designing our
network topology. As in any wireless infrastructure,
we started by defining the properties of the access
point. This latter is an 802.11 compatible router that
can serve up to 64 wireless nodes. We opted for the
Two Ray Ground radio propagation model, which is
used to mimic the free propagation model in real
deployments. Access points must contain a buffer to
process the received packets. In our experiments, we
defined a buffer size of 2MB using a priority queue
in which packets that are received first are processed
first unless their priority flag states otherwise. The
use of priority queues was picked because in
wireless security, it is usually the case that certain
packets such as management packets are processed
first because they might include information that
might affect the overall flow of the operation of the
network. For example, an access point must process
disassociation packets first because disconnecting a
malicious node as soon as possible might have a big
impact on the compromised network. The AP also
transmits the electromagnetic signal using an Omni-
antenna. We have chosen this antenna type to match
the current mode in most commercial router devices.
The AP also handles routing using the Direct
Sequence Distance Vector (DSDV) algorithm. As in
most 802.11 networks, the Z-order of the access
point is not taken into consideration because it is
usually installed in the same level as the WN. This is
not true in other types of wireless networks such as
GSM for example where the base station BS is
usually installed at a high altitude to cover a larger
cell area as well as to prevent issues such as line of
site (LOS) problems.
3.2 Mobile Wireless Nodes
In our network simulation, we defined mobile
wireless nodes that access the network resources via
the access point defined above. These nodes are
generated randomly using a scenario script and
move throughout the network perimeter defined
previously. The mobile nodes use the same physical
characteristics as the AP i.e. the antenna and
transmission types. In order to make the simulated
network identical to wireless local area network in
real conditions, we defined the access point as well
as the wireless nodes in the same subnet. This last
condition is very important because we are trying to
simulate an environment in which the mobile nodes
are requesting access directly from the AP in the
same network. This implies that putting them on a
separate subnet forces the handshake packets to
travel across a wired backbone, thus, the packet
energy cannot be relied on because its physical
characteristics altered too much. The wireless node
movement within the simulated grid is random; i.e.
all nodes start at a random position and they all
move in different but continuous directions. By
continuous direction we imply that there is no jump
over or cuts in the path because doing so is
inconsistent with real human movements. As in the
case of the AP, the wireless nodes are positioned in
the same Z-order as the AP, i.e. on the same level.
To get the simulation to run at a high degree of
realism, we observed how nodes move in the
students’ area of our University and recorded the
way they moved in terms of x and y coordinates.
After recording such data, we reproduced WN
movement accordingly. Before we delve into the
experiment, let us recap what we are trying to
accomplish. We are trying to correlate the wireless
user’s distance from the access point and granting
access to use the WLAN. This is a new level of
security, because even if the user, whether malicious
or not, tries to access to system, he must prove that
he is physically located where he claims to be. This
scheme can be used alone or in combination with
other well known security schemes to protect
sensitive information and data that can for example
be accessed from within the company’s authorized
perimeter only and remotely through a network.
In order to accomplish this goal without incurring
any change to the existing infrastructure, we use the
power of the received packets to approximate the
location of the transmitter. The approximation
process as we will detail later, is done using a neural
network system to learn and cluster the input data.
3.3 Grid Definition
To simulate our topology, we defined a 670 by 670
grid where we position our access point as well as
the mobile nodes. The figure bellow depicts the grid
topology that we used in our simulation.
Figure 4: Simulated Grid Topology.
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