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Thread ID: 51824 2004-11-30 21:28:00 Wireless Encryption mentioned in PCW Chilling_Silence (9) Press F1
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298382 2004-11-30 21:28:00 I find it amusing in the latest PCW they suggest you turn on WEP.

The Rc4 algorithm is inherently (dictionary.reference.com) weak and its my understanding that it can be broken in under a second with the right amount of packets to compare.

There are a few moves to increase this security with other 'streaming encryption' algorithms, but so far from my research says that encryption via Wireless is useless.

I think it started when the first creators of Wireless encryption figured nobody would want to intercept packets. We need an Encryption that assumes that everybody can grab every packet sent!!

...But that I am yet to see in Wireless. Personally I would rather save myself the hassle of Wireless encryption and just leave it open....

Page 60 suggests encryption for all you die-hard PCW fans :-)

What gets me is the writer even mentions Airsnort (http://airsnort.shmoo.com/). There are others, such as:
http://www.kismetwireless.net/
http://www.ethereal.com/

And Im sure there are Win32 apps also ;-)

Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed the article and the info on some new standards :-)


Chill.
Chilling_Silence (9)
298383 2004-11-30 22:14:00 What about WPA? CYaBro (73)
298384 2004-11-30 23:31:00 Even an easily broken security protection is better than none at all. ;-) It stops "accidental" breaches. There are stories of people who put in an AP and find they suddenly have a better class of ISP connection, because their neighbour has an AP with no protection. :O

Nothing's going to stop someone who wants to break your security.
Graham L (2)
298385 2004-12-01 04:02:00 To be more secure you should tie it down to MAC addresses as well, although this is cumbersome for large wireless networks it does make small wireless networks secure and isn't hard to set up. pjg54 (2639)
298386 2004-12-01 04:10:00 WPA IIRC is an Interim standard and is still flawed. I found documentation online of somebody who was able to break it, but cant find what I did with it...

I agree Graham, Some I guess is better than none....

Question about MAC Binding - This doesnt prevent packet interception does it?
It would prevent ICS etc, but not the viewing of transmitted data, correct?

So far the conclusion I am drawing is that Yes, they were right in mentioning turning it on to do some _basic_ prevention of Access/Use of the WLAN, but that packet interception and data viewing is still possible?!

Or have I missed something here.....
Chilling_Silence (9)
298387 2004-12-01 04:26:00 > Or have I missed something here.....

Nope. Bang on the nail.

It's not hard to stop people using your network, but to prevent them from seeing it is much more of a challenge.
george12 (7)
298388 2004-12-01 04:55:00 Ahh.... Okay, so assuming the motive of that was to stop the user from having their network hijacked - Is there no current way to be 100% positive the data being sent is not being intercepted and then un-encrypted?

Intercepted I dont mind, but decrypted I dont like the looks of.

That is why I use Gaim-Encryption with many of my contacts now!
Chilling_Silence (9)
298389 2004-12-01 06:44:00 Yeah found out the other day WPA is flawed as well if you use the Pre-Shared Key method. Something to do with not random hashing... E|im (87)
298390 2004-12-01 07:13:00 Somebody needs to create a variable key-length, block-size, randomly generated key-table encryption algorithm for Wireless...... not just 128bit block key that can be broken.... Ive got an idea - Im off to investigate! Chilling_Silence (9)
298391 2004-12-01 19:21:00 WPA version 2 should be out soon. Not to sure what the difference is though :? CYaBro (73)
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