Show HN: Wiffi – The Scent of Secure Connection

ParadoxOryx · on April 1, 2015

How does it handle rouge smells? What if an attacker tries to interfere using something like Febreze?

tomjhill · on April 1, 2015

Hello - I would really appreciate feedback on my new startup. We are developing scented patches that inform a user that a WiFi connection is secure and legitimate. Thanks!

charliefg · on April 1, 2015

I heard about this one company that had a similar idea but implemented it via a high frequency acoustic signature; the higher the frequency the stronger the encryption. It apparently turned into this nightmare of competing signatures and people couldn't think straight near the more secure connections. This scent technology seems to be less intrusive.

When you get different scents, will the wiffi emitters automatically sychronised with other nearby emitters so the distinct carrier smells don't interact and cause service ambiguity?

tomjhill · on April 1, 2015

Can you remember the name of the company who tried it with high frequency acoustic signatures?

Nice idea! Ambiguity isn't something we have encountered so far during testing. It's something we are looking into though.

The plan is to eventually 'poison' the scent with a bad smell if there is somebody trying to spoof the hotspot or if the connection is compromised.