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Responsible Wireless Access For Your Access Point

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the accessability-and-sanity dept.

bgood writes: "O'Reilly Network has an interesting article on authentication for wireless networks. The author discusses both the technical aspects, specifically NoCatAuth, and the overall context of why someone would choose (or not choose) to monitor or track the use of their wireless network. While geared towards network neighborhoods, the article definitely has applicability in more formal settings."

3 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. auth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The major problem with access points are the ACL rules, and no the auth process. Even 128bit keys can be sniffed and cracked, the only mildly effective method for security of the AP is IPSEC on IP, and MAC address based firewall rules.

    1. Re:auth? by Falsch+Freiheit · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, MAC address based firewall rules won't solve the security problem, either. They'll raise the barrier slightly, but it's fairly easy with most 802.11b cards (and with regular Ethernet cards, for that matter) to use a different MAC address than the one assigned to your device. Under Linux it's "ifconfig eth0 hw ether [new MAC address here]". Not nearly difficult enough.

  2. Re:Requires HTTP and a human by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    We don't need to go 'back to the drawing board.' First, the auth system _allows_ ip access without http access, and without human intervention. This access can be limited or prohibited by the owner of the node.


    Second, and more importantly, the auth system exists _right now_ and it works very very well. If node owners want to require logins, then that is more than their right! To bitch and whine about it shows that you have not considered the issue.


    Perhaps you could write some code before you whine.