Individually Separated Wireless Access Point to Protect User’s Private Information

Abstract

Due to the miniaturization, diversification, and massification of devices, the amount of installation of wireless AP (Access Point)s has increased, and the users can utilize the Internet by connecting their devices such as laptops, mobile phones, and tablet PCs to wireless APs when desired. However, there has been a big concern about the threat to steal user’s personal information from the devices connected to the wireless APs. People think this can be prevented by using the encrypted channel of the wireless AP, but the passwords of the wireless APs used in coffee shops, restaurants, or public places are null or a shared-single, so that the malicious user can also obtain such a password and the user’s personal information may be easily exposed. In this paper, we propose a protection scheme for user’s personal information delivered within the domain of a wireless AP and we introduce a method using a POS (Point of Sale) system for the scheme. A random SSID and password are generated through the POS system, and a user’s dedicated AP is generated based on this. Users can register their SSID and password with the device to protect them from the threat of personal information leakage by malicious users.