>* The security of 802.11b is pretty much easy to hack
> and the best is: You don't need a physical connection
> to the network.
Where did you get that from ?
I don't know what kind of base station you are referring to but it is
very easy to make 802.11b very secure by just checking a few tick
boxes, for example on my Airport at home I checked ...
1) closed network
this means that the network's name is never advertised.
2) WEP encryption
this means nothing is sent unencrypted. BTW 802.11b uses DSSS,
(Direct sequence spread spectrum), which was originally developed for
secure military applications and if we would discuss 3G and security
here you would probably explain to me how secure 3G is because of
DSSS.
3) access control
where I enter the ethernet hardware address of the WiFi cards I allow
to access my network.
also you can set your base station to only accept admin sessions from
a non-wireless client.
These security features are very easy to use (just check the tick
box). If people don't use them, then that is not to say that the
technology is insecure.
GSM for example is designed to always authenticate a mobile phone
when it signs on to a network, and the security is pretty good.
However, many networks switch this off for roamers and reuse the
challenge once the phone has been authenticated once in order to
minimise SS7 traffic with the home network. This has led to fraud as
it is easy to capture the reused challenge over the air. This is bad
practise on the side of the networks - not a security flaw of GSM - a
bandwidth inefficiency flaw perhaps but not a security flaw.
Same goes for 802.11b. If people don't use the features - it's bad
practice. Eventually they will get hurt and learn to switch those
features on. The technology however is very secure.
>Ok, it's not as easy, but it's possible. The few times I was
>involved with wireless networks, the person who set it up
>made major mistakes and it was accessible for everybody.
That's what happens if Nintendo kids are allowed to call themselves
IT professionals. Not that it is that difficult to check three tick
boxes - but it is probably too difficult to read the manual ;-)
If you had someone setup that base station who hasn't got any
experience, the chance is that they would have first read the manual,
where it says "If you do not check this box then everybody will have
access to your network" and they would have naturally checked the
tick box.
>Anyway, I am hungry now and follow Curt to MosBurger (not).
buon appetito!
regards
benjamin
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Received on Wed Aug 15 16:01:38 2001