Achieving data-rates of multiple Gbps in 60 GHz millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication systems requires efficient beam-steering algorithms. To find the optimal steering direction on IEEE 802.11ad compatible devices, state-of-the-art approaches sweep through all predefined antenna sectors. Recently, much more efficient alternatives, such as compressive path tracking, have been proposed, which scale well even with arrays with thousands of antenna elements. However, such have not yet been integrated into consumer devices. In this work, we adapt compressive path tracking for sector selection in off-the-shelf IEEE 802.1 lad devices. In contrast to existing solutions, our compressive sector selection tolerates the imperfections of low-cost hardware, tracks beam directions in 3D and does not rely on pseudo-random beams. We implement our protocol on a commodity router, the TP-Link Talon AD7200, by modifying the sector sweep algorithm in the IEEE 802.11ad chip's firmware. In particular, we modify the firmware to obtain the signal strength of received frames and to select custom sectors. Using this extension, we precisely measure the device's sector patterns. We then select the best sector based on the measured patterns and sweep only through a subset of probing sectors. Our results demonstrate, that our protocol outperforms the existing sector sweep, increases stability, and speeds up the sector selection by factor 2.3.

FullMAC WiFi chips have the potential to realize modifications to WiFi implementations that exceed the limits of current standards or to realize the implementation of new standards, such as 802.11p, on off-the-shelve hardware. As a developer, one, however, needs access to the firmware source code to implement these modifications. In general, WiFi firmwares are closed source and do not allow any modifications. With our C-based programming framework, NexMon, we allow the extension of existing firmware of Broadcom's FullMAC WiFi chips. In this work, we demonstrate how to get started by running existing example projects and by creating a new project to transmit arbitrary frames with a Nexus 5 smartphone.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology widely used for security-critical applications like access control or payment systems. Many of these systems rely on the security assumption that the card has to be in close proximity to communicate with the reader. We developed NFCGate, an Android application capable of relaying NFC communication between card and reader using two rooted but otherwise unmodified Android phones. This enables us to increase the distance between card and reader, eavesdrop on, and even modify the exchanged data. The application should work for any system built on top of ISO 14443-3 that is not hardened against relay attacks, and was successfully tested with a popular contactless card payment system and an electronic passport document.