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To: os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com
Subject: Re: [OS2Wireless] good choice for wireless pcmcia card
From: Lewis G Rosenthal <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 11:22 -0400
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I'll have to check my firmware rev, Andy. I think it's the last one before 
Cisco broke non-Windoze support.

Worried too much about security? That's a hard question to answer. How's 
the lock on your front door at home? Personally, while I live in a quiet 
lower-upper-middle class suburb on Long Island, I should probably have a 
deadbolt on my front door. In actuality, I do not. In fact, I still have 
the original double front doors on the house from '68, with nine lites in 
them. So, no only do I not have a deadbolt, but I have easily breakable 
glass panels on them. Do I worry? Not really. I have a dog (okay, so he' a 
big friendly Collie and not a Doberman, but he'd probably get pretty mean 
if someone wanted to hurt my little girls).

The idea is that WEP is a first line defense, not a one and only one. By 
far, the biggest risk you run is someone piggy-backing your broadband 
connection. Sure, someone can pick off your email passwords and even 
intercept your mail, but once the signal is recorded, given enough time, 
even 128-bit WEP can be cracked.

The best combination is a service which handles SSL or TLS for POP & SMTP. 
Couple that with WEP, and you have a multiple layer security scheme. Of 
course, your passwords without SSL or TLS can be hacked from other places 
on the net (servers, packet sniffers, etc.), so for me, WEP becomes more of 
a "feel-good" technology. WPA intoduces TKIP, which automates the key 
rotation, and this increases WEP's effectiveness by an order of magnitude. 
Without key rotation, it's just a matter of capturing enough packets over a 
lng enough period of time to crack the encryption (a couple weeks with 
128-bit and a busy network; a few hours with 64-bit).

In all but office & apartment building scenarios, I find WEP to be more 
trouble than it's worth. Do you encrypt your wired, wireless, or cellular 
phones? :-)
___
Lewis
___
Lewis G Rosenthal
Rosenthal & Rosenthal
Sent via SnapperMail

...... Original Message .......
On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 08:49:47 -0600 Andy Willis <abwillis@comcast.net> wrote:
>Well I have turned on MAC filtering now, have the SSID set to not 
>broadcast, lowered the power to cut the range, allowing only 1 
>association on the AP, and as both the card and AP are cisco turned on 
>all the proprietary stuff  to limit compatibility somewhat to other 
>devices.  I booted to windoze prior to turning on my AP a couple of 
>times and scanned for wireless devices and there weren't any that came 
>up.  I don't think where I am there is likely to be any problems but is 
>there any other safeguards that I could put into place?  From what you 
>write, Lewis, I see you aren't using WEP at home, am I worrying to much 
>about WEP?
>Lewis, what firmware do you have?  If I can get WEP I can connect at 
>other locations.
>Andy
>
>Lewis G Rosenthal wrote:
>
>> I wonder if the WEP issue is firmware related. Mine seems to work 
>> consistently, though admittedly, I don't use WEP at home. It is also 
>> possible that certain AP / Wi-Fi card combinations don't play well 
>> together with WEP.
>>
>> Of course, all of the WEP stuff becomes a non-issue for most of us if 
>> and when we finally get WPA driver support and ultimately 802.11i 
>> (ratified) driver support (and hardware support).
>>
>> On 04/29/2004 04:32 am, Jonas Buys thus wrote :
>>
>>> Indeed Andy, everyone is expecting WEP to work with
>>> the CISCO 350 driver, but in fact , most of the times,
>>> it does not work (sometimes it does) strangely enough.
>>> Anyway, I use the driver + mac filtering on my WAP.
>>>
>>> I can really recommend you LinkSys WPC11 v4. Supported by the latest 
>>> GenPRISM + encryption et
>>> cetra.
>>>
>>> Best regards, Jonas Buys.
>>> << www.os2warp.be >>
>>>
>>>
>>
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