Jesse Huestis on Mon, 25 Nov 2002 10:10:06 -0500


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Re: [PLUG] WiFI config


Thank you.  I will look up the chip set.


gabriel rosenkoetter wrote:
On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 01:54:34PM -0500, Jesse Huestis wrote:
(DLink was the sharpest in MS OSs offering 256 bit encryption)

Using what algorithm, peer-reviewed by whom?

WEP's bad, but a vague, airy algorithm you can't look at is worse.

What are the standard card people are using with Linux?

Anything based on a WaveLAN or PRISM2 chipset should work. Try it
and see (or figure out what chipset your card uses; your vendor
should be able to tell you).

Also, according to documentation in the Linksys manuals, WEP encryption 
is not standard. Has anyone had problems with WEP not working mixing
and matching wireless companies cards and access points?

No, LinkSys is saying that they're using a modified version of WEP
so they don't generate weak keys, at the cost of reducing the key
search space. It's a trade-off.

Anyway, it'd really better interoperate with other things claiming
WEP support, or they're advertising falsely.

You can be sure that D-Link's 256-bit mode will only work with other
D-Link hardware (and that quite possibly only if you're using
D-Link's software to drive it).

If you want secure wireless, hold on for 802.11i where it'll be done
right. If you want a little better security on 802.11{a,b}, try Niels
Ferguson's Michael algorithm over MIC. If you must have secure
wireless today, you can do IPSec at the IP layer, using 128-bit
WEP on the wifi just to obscure the source and destination of
packets (the only thing IPSec can't encrypt, obviously).