[PLUG] Revisited, Large Wireless Network on the Cheap

[Paul <gyoza@comcast.net>]

It seems that WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access, Pre-Shared Key) is a good 
first step toward WPA-RADIUS.

Although WPA-PSK has two possible vulnerabilities, it is easier to 
implement and is more secure compared to WEP.  Both vulnerabilities that 
I'm thinking of are due to the PSK part.  First, the PSK or passphrase 
might fall into the wrong hands.  Second, a brute-force attack could be 
used to guess the passphrase.  Just like handling login passwords, 
changing the passphrase routinely and choosing a less predictable phrase 
will help a lot.

Getting my test setup to work with a WRT54GS router, a "classic" ORiNOCO 
Gold 11b card, and WinXP was very simple.

Router config:
Security Mode: WPA Pre-Shared Key
WPA Algorithms: TKIP
WPA Shared  Key: something

XP client config:
Downloaded the latest ORiNOCO device driver.
Installed a free WPA Supplicant.* (Q815485_WXP_SP2_x86_ENU.exe)
Network Authentication: WPA-PSK
Data encryption: TKIP
Network key: something

* A Supplicant is basically client software used to communicate with the 
authentication server.

That's it.  Pretty simple.

As far as other OSes go, I know Linux has Supplicants available and I 
read the following about OS X: "WPA support with supplicant will be 
included in Mac OS X version 10.3 ("Panther") that will ship by the end 
of 2003."

The next step is to switch to WPA-RADIUS using the FreeRADIUS server.  
Also, I'm thinking that using a RADIUS server for wired network 
authentication might be nice, too.  Or am I getting carried away with 
this RADIUS stuff?

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