Users Report Faulty WPA In 2nd-Gen IPod Touch

jesuscash writes "It seems early adopters of the new iPod Touch are out of luck when they bring it home and attempt to connect it to their WPA/WPA2 secured network. Reading this Apple forum thread shows that many tests with different configurations show a no-go on WPA. Some of the last entries give the best clue, revealing a 'received deauthentication' error in their router logs. Apple has yet to respond."

Comments

Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I get a WTF?!

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because WEP is horribly, horribly broken, and the only two options an iPod touch has of connecting to an access point are to use WEP, which is almost as bad as plaintext at this point, or use plaintext.

To use the ever-present car analogy, it would be like one of a car's most advertised features only working if you removed all the locks, and then complaining that somebody covered it by saying "A single bug is worthy of coverage? Can I get a WTF?!".

... That WAS a car analogy, right?

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[jamesh]

Can I get a WTF?!

If you can't get WPA or WPA2, then I think your chances of getting a WTF are close to zero.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Koiu Lpoi]

I'll probably get modded down for this, but there seems to have been a stream of negative Apple/iPod Touch articles lately, to cater to the "hate the touch" crowd around here. Maybe I'm cynical, or maybe my tin foil hat is on too tight, but this just stinks of the same quality as the occasional "MS did something not noteworthy, but we can spin it to be negative" article.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

.. That WAS a car analogy, right?

I'm not sure, you lost me at anal.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to work on your reading comprehension. Quote the GP:

To use the ever-present car analogy, it would be like one of a car's most advertised features only working if you removed all the locks

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Nerdfest]

When a company grabs enough market share this sort of thing is bound to happen when they screw up. It becomes news. People like to hate the 'big guys' (MS Sony, etc) and frequently for very good reason. Imagine how sloppy they'd get if people weren't all over them for their mistakes.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time *I* checked, having unencrypted Wi-fi *does* renders Wi-fi completely useless. Useless as in having unknown people downloading terabytes of crap over your pipes in the dozens.

So yes, having no Wi-fi connection doesn't render an iPod completely useless, but it sure takes away most of the fun.

And no, I will not switch my Wi-fi over to unencrypted or laughable WEP. Not because of a single bugged device and not because anything else. Living near the city centre with 100 households or more within my Wi-fi range prohibits even thinking about that.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Rabid Elk]

But it just works!

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[kirbysuperstar]

I'll probably get modded down for this, but there seems to have been a stream of negative Apple/iPod Touch articles lately

It's actually a subtle counter to Engadget's "We compare the iPhone to a plasma TV and find out which is better" articles.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wipe the apple fanboi drivel from your chin, the ipod touch is getting slammed recently because apple have introduced a number of bugs for it with their awful 2.1 update. I suggest you check their forums to see just how many problems have occurred since this rubbish `upgrade'. You'll note apple has not acknowledged a single one. Playing the microsoft game of pretending there are no issues. They also prevent you from rolling back to a previous version. So it is tough-shit if you upgraded.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[jmpeax]

this just stinks of the same quality as the occasional "MS did something not noteworthy, but we can spin it to be negative"

Broken WPA is pretty bad. I mean this is a product that has supposedly finished testing and gone to market, and a basic network security/authentication feature isn't working. This is definitely news.

As for your comparison with Microsoft, consider what you would be saying if this had happened with the Zune.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Heembo]

wpa 1/2 has been supported by other consumer facing products for several years. Apple is supposed to be about high quality devices that we are happy to pay a premium for. Security is a big deal these days. For Apple to release a product with such a key feature horribly broken is - horrible; this is not a made-up complaint.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

wait a minute, wasn't the problem limited to D-Link wireless access points? If so, wouldn't that point the laser of blame over to D-Link?

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[lightknight]

You know, you could just lock down the list of mac addresses that are cleared to access the WAP...

Cuts down the traffic quite a bit, I imagine. Also, you could just not broadcast the SID...

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[neuromanc3r]

I would assume that almost everybody capable of cracking WEP also knows how to spoof a MAC adress and find "hidden" access points.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Babbster]

As for your comparison with Microsoft, consider what you would be saying if this had happened with the Zune.

Is this one of those "if a tree falls in the forest would it make a sound" questions?

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[hairyfeet]

What is happening to Apple,anyway? They used to be the "It just works" company,but lately it seems they are taking pages out of the MSFT book and releasing buggy crap,and even going nuts with the DRM like MSFT. And at least MSFT has an excuse,since Bill was stupid enough to leave a dancing monkey in charge,so what is up with Apple?

It seems like with the Vista hatred brewing they would be going the extra mile to show their stuff "just works" so they can grab market share,instead of this crap. I mean,who in their right mind would use WEP these days? Your average 15 year old with access to Google can hack it! But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[foniksonik]

Huh... that's what i thought everyone did....

Encryption slows everything down, so your already limited bandwidth over WiFI is cut even more...

then add multiple machines sharing that over encrypted channels...

Really if you need an encrypted channel your best bet is to set up a VPN to where you want to go securely.

Websites that need secure channels already do so with SSL, email can be done with PGP... then there's SSH and again VPNs.

If you just have to have an encrypted WiFI network available, routers are cheap, so just buy an extra one and hook it up to your standard modem as an additional device, then use it when you need it. You should still be locking the MAC addresses down to those devices that need access to ti.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[teh kurisu]

How do you find a MAC address that works?

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[onefriedrice]

Has Apple ever acknowledged minor bugs, let alone major bugs or security vulnerabilities? No, they just silently fix them in the coming software updates. And I do mean silently, since they don't seem to release public changelogs either.

They don't pretend they're not issues, they just don't disclose them or "acknowledge" them, especially on their support forums which are community discussions. In the case of security vulnerabilities, I wish they would disclose some problems, but the simple fact is that they don't, and that's how it's always been.

Furthermore, for the record, I have no problems at all with 2.1, and the improvements were very welcome. Also, you certainly can roll back to previous versions. In iTunes you can select the firmware to "restore" to, so your last statement is just misinformation.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[S-100]

True, problems always happen, but "Apple has yet to respond" is the usual tactic for them. They always attempt a cover-up (no comment, deleting forum posts, etc.) and then, magically, the problem is acknowledged once a fix appears. That their customers are left in the dark seems of little interest to them.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really this stupid offline as well?

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[neuromanc3r]

Sniffing the AP's traffic. That admittedly requires the AP to actually be used every now and then, but I wouldn't want to "secure" my wifi by not using it...

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[dougisfunny]

Locking down MAC addresses is less useful than WEP.

It is equivalent to standing in line for something and listening for the name the guy in front of you gives to get past the bouncer, and then using the same name, and he still lets you in.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[phoenix321]

Some major points against your solution (I'm the AC you've responded to)

Proposed solution: not broadcasting SSID

Verdict:
a. anyone with entry level IT knowledge will be able to detect and connect to non-SSID-broadcasting APs. I don't want anyone to connect to my AP unauthorized. If everyone would be fair and could be trusted to not upload illegal material or download oodles of torrents, that would be fine, but in our current world, no.

b. anyone with mid to high level IT knowledge will be able to eavesdrop on any cleartext going over the air. I don't want anyone to listen to my connection, no matter I look for cookie recipes or make stock trade orders. There are several housemates on my WLAN with less than entry-level IT knowledge and it's my responsibility to protect them.

Proposed solution 2: restrict MAC entries.
Verdict:

a. I don't have enough time to actively administer my AP, so every housemate and their guest can use the net. SSID and password are pinned on the fridge, everyone who is trustworthy enough to enter our apartment is considered trustworthy enough to access our network until proven otherwise. With 5 roommates and several guests a month, everything else would be like a second job.

b. MACs can be spoofed. This may require mid-high-level IT knowledge, but I don't want anyone unauthorized on my net. See above entries: IT-un-savvy roommates, friends and guests need protection.

Conclusion: proposed solutions would be unworkable given my time constraints and requirements ("You can access my net IF you are able to access my apartment AND you don't bother me").

Personal opinion: redesigning network policies because of a single misbehaving or incompatible device is a waste of time.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Tyr_7BE]

this just stinks of the same quality as the occasional "MS did something not noteworthy, but we can spin it to be negative" article

Apple releases one of the most anticipated phones in recent history, only to find that it performs HORRIBLY in the real world. It drops calls, the UI is slow, people complain about having to reboot it several times per day. There are stories about updates taking 18 hours, and updates failing and users having to restore the factory image. Then Apple releases iTunes 8 - lots of neat features, only it crashes the OS whenever it's installed on Windows Vista. Now Apple releases new iPod touches, complete with wifi, and they don't work on more than half the networks in the world.

Apple used to put out some quality stuff, but I don't know what's going through their head these days. It seems that the last 3 major releases they've had have fallen flat on their faces straight out the gate. There are still apologists that tell people "oh you're just putting a negative spin on it", but you have to admit, something's been up with Apple lately.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[chartreuse]

You may be focusing specifically on OS updates, but Apple's security updates usually have a itemized description of each bug, including shout-outs to the people who reported them. You can usually get to it by following links from the description in Software Update, and you could probably find it via the website if you cared to.

In general, I think we're seeing a demographic disconnect with a lot of the comments here. To use the ever-popular car analogy, the overwhelming majority of car users just want their car to be a reliable form of transportation that "just works". Same with computers. We here are from a demographic that ranges from button-pushers to tinkerers to professional mechanics who could build a car from scratch, and our concerns are different than 95% of Windows/Apple users. Technical detail is our lifeblood, that's why we come here, but we don't expect it in the mass media any more than we expect our politicians to live up to the moral values they try to impose on the rest of us.

If WPA is broken on the new Touch (and it sounds like it is), then that's one stupid effing bug. I was thinking of getting one so I could play with programming a touch/gesture interface on what appears to be a very nice portable media display, but that's a show-stopper.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[profplump]

Yes, people who were willing to break encryption or spoof MACs can get in. But most people wouldn't, which eliminates 99% of the purported problem, and the people that would are demonstrably breaking the law while standing within ~200 feet of you, which should be it reasonably easy to go stop them.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[phoenix321]

Proposed solution: lock down MAC access lists to prevent unauthorized access because encryption is reducing maximum net bandwidth between AP and client.

Verdict:

a. full protection against sniffing, eavesdropping and cracking attempts is needed all the time while maximum throughput is not. I don't know about the net effect on bandwidth but the speed limit is usually between AP and ISP for anything but demanding intranet file transfers. The considered maximum use case is less than three machines watching HD-video streams simultaneously from the inhouse file server. WPA2 is able to deliver this with a healthy margin.

b. There are users on my net with entry-level IT knowledge. It is absolutely unrealistic to assume they can be trained to use SSL when needed, let alone comprehend PGP or VPNs. Although this may be considered standard procedures by some, they are clearly not, within the general internet population. I don't want to undertake large educational projects, but make the best efforts to secure my part of the transit line. WPA2 can deliver this, as it is part of all recent OS'es and requires no special knowledge other than SSID and PASS.

c. VPNs could be argued to be standard procedures, too, given recent OS'es, but require more training or support that I'm able to give. Also, I don't want to implement numerous test cases to ensure that a VPN-ed setup does not allow for out-of-tunnel connections, which at least Windows will try to do under some circumstances (VPN down but WIFI online).

d. routers may be cheap, but I am cheaper. Additional electricity consumption (+10W idle) and equipment purchases are not my style.

Conclusion: proposed solutions do not fit requirements, time and budget contraints.

Personal opinion: it is ironic to propose VPN encryption after explicitly stating that encryption generally limits available bandwidth. In this contect, proposing PGP-encrypted emails through an SSL-encrypted link to the email provider using a VPN-encrypted last mile access is pretty laughable. Purchasing 50 EUR worth of equipment that consumes 30 EUR worth of electricity per year, redesigning the local network and educate several users to offset for the shortcomings of one single device is perverse.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[phoenix321]

That silent fix procedure is one of the main reason we will probably see any Linux distro faster in the general business populace than software or hardware from Apple Inc.

It's hard enough to maintain a heterogenous client-server environment when all relevant vendors offer full changelogs for each update and hotfix. More often than not, they still affect areas and functions they didn't even touch.

Just imagine maintaining a network full of hard and software with updates for which only God and Steve Jobs know what they are actually changing. No one has enough time and resources to conduct full audits after each update, a thorough check of all stated changes is the absolute maximum any IT department outside NASA and NSA would be willing to commit.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[danomac]

Also, you could just not broadcast the SID...

That won't do anything. On my laptop Vista shows non-broadcast networks and marks them as "Unnamed network". This was it's default setting; I didn't do anything to turn this mode on... I don't think it'd be that hard to find out what the SSID is either.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Firehed]

Yeah, but if you're living in the city center where there are 100+ households within range of the AP as the original poster is, chances are that at least one of them has a WiFi AP with lower security settings. Unless the hacker is specifically targeting YOU or YOUR data rather than wanting either to just play around or get online, it's more than enough. And if they're just playing around, having the extra security may make you MORE of a target since you'd be the biggest challenge.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[poopdeville]

Passive scanning on the wireless network.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Firehed]

Forget the Zune, what about XP? At least as of SP2, the ability to even connect to a WPA2 network (and maybe WPA as well) is provided by a non-critical hotfix that requires WGA authentication to download. Apple may not publicly acknowledge bugs, but at least they're not forcing you ensure you've got a Genuine® iPodâ before being allowed to get to a patch that adds functionality that was left out entirely to begin with.

This may have been addressed in SP3; I have no idea - there are no XP SP3 systems on my wireless network (3 Macs, 1 Vista, and 1 XP SP2 system from the office that's had the aforementioned patch applied).

Bugs happen. It sucks. But all programmers know this. Apple's way of dealing with them certainly rubs the fur of Slashdot's FOSS crowd the wrong way, but nobody has forced any of us to buy their products. The 2.0.0 firmware was quite buggy, and the 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 updates addressed some of those bugs. Given some of the fairly major changes in 2.1 (mostly bugfixes almost as a service pack of sorts, but the iPod app got quite a few new features and interface tweaks if nothing else), you have to expect that 2.1.1 will address what's been introduced. There were a lot of network-related changes made in 2.1 to address dropped call issues in the iPhones, and as the software is mostly identical between the iPhone and iPod Touch, it's certainly likely that one of those changes introduced these bugs.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[poopdeville]

And at least MSFT has an excuse,since Bill was stupid enough to leave a dancing monkey in charge,so what is up with Apple?

Steve Jobs is dying.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[jmpeax]

is provided by a non-critical hotfix that requires WGA authentication to download

So you have to prove that you paid for the software license before using it? Don't get me wrong, I don't like DRM, but I don't like people who share and use things that they haven't paid for, either. In my experience, Microsoft's product authentication has been pretty damn painless, but this really is beside the point.

We're talking about a WPA implementation that doesn't work properly. That has nothing to do with WGA (on a side note, if you don't like Windows or don't want to pay for it, just use an alternative).

As for your explanation of where you think the bug came from, that is again irrelevant. The issue is that a product was released with a pretty serious flaw in it. No amount of fanboyism or MS-bashing changes that.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[konohitowa]

three syllables.... k-daw-son

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Darkfire79]

you had me at anal. :oP

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[neuromanc3r]

Yeah, but if you're living in the city center where there are 100+ households within range of the AP as the original poster is, chances are that at least one of them has a WiFi AP with lower security settings.

Agreed. On the other hand, if the original poster would "not even think about" using WEP instead of WPA, he probably has in interest in actual security, not merely cosmetic measures.

The point is, hiding your SSID and filtering MAC addresses do not make your network more secure. They might keep out a few really clueless idiots, but hardly anyone who knows enough to crack WEP encryption.

And if they're just playing around, having the extra security may make you MORE of a target since you'd be the biggest challenge.

Sorry, I don't buy that one. As far as I know, WPA is not yet broken, and I'm fairly certain that using WEP and a hidden SSID is a better way to invite J.Random Scriptkiddie into my network than using, you know, real encryption.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[X0563511]

If I have your mac, I can de-auth you. When that happens, I see you reauth. I do this enough times, I can brute your key out of those auth exchanges.

Granted, you need to be using a stupid key to make that worthwhile, but WPA itself is not perfect.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Falconhell]

In this case I think it just doesnt work. (-:

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Spatial]

They're called 'koans'. That one is an ice-cream koan. :p

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[garote]

Imagine?? :D

No need, friend, no need...

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[hairyfeet]

If it is true I am damned glad I don't own Apple stock,as there are WAY too many fanbois in both the public and the press that think Steve=Apple. If he dies you mark my words the stock will tank HARD. The only way I don't see it happening is if they manage to bring in The Woz(TM) to take over for at least a transition period,since the mythology is nearly as built up around him as it is Steve.Hell with The Woz(TM) we might actually see some bitching new designs that are upgradeable. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Alioth]

Broken WPA is depressingly common. We use 'enterprise' WPA (i.e. where you have a user id and password - PEAP + MSCHAPv2). Windows XP works fine with this (although it's a 19 step process to configure with XP's supplicant). WinCE and Windows Mobile 6 devices need a third party supplicant to work at all even though the authentication protocol was designed by Microsoft! (OS X and Ubuntu just work, on the other hand).

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[foniksonik]

Hmmm I believe the scenario was that people were having problems on their HOME network.

Supporting or not supporting a particular device on a corporate network is a bigger order to satisfy... and of course has more issues.

i was only speaking to the home network scenario where you need to have a basically fool proof WiFI connection for the various inhabitants who will use it for anything from iPhone access, to gaming, to VOIP, to home business.

All of my suggestions were for someone who needs such a network but also needs to be able to secure a connection on occasion or specifically for working at home on sensitive projects.

SSL covers web based purchasing... no need to re-encrypt credit card details or passwords.. also covers mail server credentials.

PGP is for when you need secure email (which is rare IMHO).

VPN is for those sensitive projects (and you really should do this anyways for that).

General WiFi encryption is for when you have general communication that you don't want random people to have access to... which makes sense on a company network as you have trade secrets, etc. and can't get everyone to use a more specific security measure.

For home use however, it is overkill and generally pointless.

Most people use it to keep neighbors from using their WiFi to download pron.... or from snooping around on their file servers, etc. which the MAC restriction will protect against in general.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

damn straigh WEP is useless otherwise geeks wouldnt be aple to get free wireless when no linksys routers are about.

posting AC for obvious reasons

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[luke923]

I guess Apple is now going after, "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! ... Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! ... Yes!"

I honestly think Ballmer needs psychiatric help.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[phoenix321]

Cleartext email, blackmail-able stuff (pr0n, dating sites, gambling), searched items, purchases, political or other forums. Everything people do on the internet is their private matter and has to be protected from Joe Sixpack around the corner who's toying around with airsnort.

There really can be such a thing as security overkill, but keeping out nosy neighbors is definetly NOT overkill. This is not stuff for tinfoil hats worrying about NSA, FBI, FEMA and alien conspiracies but real actual considerations for real actual world scenarios: the neighbor's whiz kid snooping and sharing their findings with the whole school. For this, no, thanks.

You should know and I even wrote specifically why PGP is unworkable for laypeople's mail and why MAC restrictions for home setups are a burden to maintain.

WPA and WPA2 in their PSK variants were developed for especially and specifically for this scenario and it performs incredibly well in real-world applications.

Relying on a cacophony of tools and protocols which require extensive training and bring a host of secondary issues with them needs a good reason.

As I understand, the reasons for this are the need to connect a bugged Apple product and an irrational desire to avoid a standardized, peer-reviewed, simple, proven and inexpensive method like WPA2 that has zero disadvantages except being in single-digit percentages slower compared to the toolchain you suggest.

I understand your quest for optimization, but I have to admit this proposed trade-off is pretty dumb in my view.

Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy?

[foniksonik]

hmmm well then...

Here's my response....

I set up my devices MACs on the router at home one time... finished. How often do you change devices or network cards? Me, it's once every 2 years or so... maybe you have a lot of friends who come over for LAN parties or something... fairly edge case but again... buy an extra router and set it up with free access and only plug it in when you have a party.

Now, for those special occasions when I need security of some sort.. i pull out the various apps to do the job. This may happen 3 times a year, maybe more for a specific project (in which case a VPN is set up).

i've got 8 devices on my network right now... I don't even think about it anymore. The only password I have to keep track of is the router admin tool.

As for sniffers, etc. I'm really not concerned about that as i don't really have anything to hide. Again... financial stuff all goes over SSL because well the sites I send it to use SSL to encrypt it.

Anything else I really don't care if people see. You can't blackmail someone who doesn't care what you think about their personal/private life. IMHO keeping secrets is what gets you in trouble... not the things you're trying to keep secret.

So what if people know what kind of fetish videos I find amusing... I really only lock down the network out of legal deniability and as a way to keep people from hijacking my bandwidth when I trying to get things done.

QC?

[BrokenHalo]

I would have thought this is the kind of undocumented feature that should have been picked up in the most cursory testing. If Apple was that hasty in bringing this product to market, they are not going to do their reputation any favours.

Re:QC?

[antifoidulus]

Their reputation for stuff just working has been in the shitter for the past year at least. Almost everything they release has been plagued with bug after bug after bug. iPhone 2.0, Mobile Me, Leopard the list goes on. Hell, I haven't even been able to get the Genius thing to work, all I get is an extremely unhelpful 4010 error....

Maybe Steve's policy of not significantly increasing engineering staff is finally biting Apple in the ass. I know that when I use my Mac nowadays its hard to remember that I'm NOT using a Microsoft product, Apple's stuff is just as buggy.

Re:QC?

[purpleraison]

Their reputation for stuff just working has been in the shitter for the past year at least. Almost everything they release has been plagued with bug after bug after bug. iPhone 2.0, Mobile Me, Leopard the list goes on. Hell, I haven't even been able to get the Genius thing to work, all I get is an extremely unhelpful 4010 error....

Maybe Steve's policy of not significantly increasing engineering staff is finally biting Apple in the ass. I know that when I use my Mac nowadays its hard to remember that I'm NOT using a Microsoft product, Apple's stuff is just as buggy.

Wow- so little of this is true that I just have to wonder if you've ever owned a Mac in this century?

I've not had any problems with Leopard on any of my Macs.

Re:QC?

[springbox]

And some people don't have any problems with Vista

Re:QC?

[antifoidulus]

Lets see, in immediate sight I have 2 mac pros, a powermac g4 and a powermac g5 with a macbook pro sitting on my desk and an iPhone in my pocket. So yeah, I do know a little something about macs, as we use them at work and I have found their server offerings to be utter crap. On the Desktop Leopard isn't terrible, certainly better than Vista, but the first couple iterations were pretty buggy. And you cannot argue that the iPhone 2.0(and the first batch of 3gs) wasn't buggy, Steve Jobs has even gone on record saying that mobileme was buggy, and the list goes on. For a company that advertises that they have no bugs, they certainly have a lot.

Re:QC?

[Syrente]

"Oh really, your leg is broken? Well, see, the thing is I have a leg... and it's not broken nor does it hurt when I walk, so I don't believe you. Have you ever really had a leg in this century?"

See what I'm saying?

Re:QC?

[Anonymous Coward]

About 18 months ago I set up a wireless network for some guys. Normally, I get paid for this, but in their case it was a "favor". So I do all the normal stuff, explain to them how to add a MAC to the white list, the function of the secret word, and the importance of not giving passwords out, and keeping them at least somewhat strong. I get a call a month later that it's not working and I need to fix it, cause one of them has a new Mac Book. So I finish my day, drive over and the guy with the shiney new Mac is all proud. "I fixed it he tells me." So now I'm proud, my foresight has paid off. I left instructions, they were followed. "My Mac told me to just factory reset the router. It just works!" he proclaims. Yeah... doesn't use WPA you say? I'm not surprised. You know people are following those "helpful instructions" in offices out there. I can't even really blame the people. I don't have millions of dollars backing up my brand to give me the venier of authority. It's in the help file. The idea that Apple would endorse completely nuking the first layers of security is slightly implausable. Demanding that everyone know the minutia of network security is ridiculous. Not everyone at Apple cares about their work. Which is a situation you'll find everywhere.

Re:QC?

[BrokenHalo]

On the Desktop Leopard isn't terrible, certainly better than Vista, but the first couple iterations were pretty buggy.

Notoriously so. But you sort of expect that with (n+1).0 versions of just about anything. By the time I got around to installing Leopard, pretty much all the bugs had been squashed, and I have no complaints.

You mentioned that genius thing not working, so I just fired it up to see how it went. It didn't crash, but the playlists it came up with don't qualify IMO for the appellation of "Genius". I think something between "Cretin" and "Moron" might be more appropriate. :-)

But my music collection has probably confounded it; about 55% jazz of various flavours, lots of baroque and classical, with liberal splashings of popular, folk and world music. Maybe I'm the genius. Ha. >8-|

Re:QC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that when I use my Mac nowadays its hard to remember that I'm NOT using a Microsoft product, Apple's stuff is just as buggy.

Try using Parallels so you can run Windows on a Mac... and get the worst of both worlds! Plus, it virtualizes your graphics and all other device access as well. (Imagine playing a game where all graphics operations are done in software to a frame buffer in RAM, which is then block copied to the actual graphics adapter.) Welcome to MY nightmare!

Re:QC?

[falcon5768]

Its not that its shifted, its that for various reasons people are riding Apple harder than Microsoft or Dell, HP etc.. Obviously it's their own fault. Advertising it "just works" means people will go out of their way to prove it doesn't. But the media has been especially hard on Apple since while owning less of the market they ARE the more popular of the computer manufactures. so you have situations like this, where antidotal evidence turns into 30, 40 50% of people are having issues with no data to even come CLOSE to backing up the claim. Or the iPhone of which everyone blamed Apple for what turned out to be AT&Ts shitty 3G service.

But contrary to your belief Leopard has been fine, as has the genius service beyond the first day where they had store issues. So if your having problems with them its more likely your issue. And contrary to our Dell machines which constantly arrive broken and needing warrantee repair, I have not repaired a Apple computer in our district of sent them out for repair in 6 years.

Re:QC?

[falcon5768]

thats my only issuewith genius, it sworking but it seems to choke on music with no record on the music store. I know my collection which holds a ton of darkwave/goth stuff from college, and music from game soundtracks, completely kills it to the point it shows me the top hits.

Re:QC?

[BrokenHalo]

"My Mac told me to just factory reset the router. It just works!" he proclaims. Yeah... doesn't use WPA you say? I'm not surprised.

That is such a horrible story, I don't know whether to believe it or not.

Suffice to say that one of the better characteristics of Macs is that I've found they have always interfaced seamlessly with any WAP I have ever used, regardless of what protocol it employs. Not that this has anything to do with iPods, but still... (Disclaimer: I am not necessarily a Mac fanboy, but IMO they do make a much less frustrating thing to administer than windows boxes.)

Re:QC?

[purpleraison]

wow - some windows fanboy marked my last post as 'troll' when my post was in response to an ACTUAL troll post :p

gotta love the /.

Re:QC?

[Lars T.]

But there are more people with no problems with Leopard than people with no problems with Vista.

Re:QC?

[antifoidulus]

Huh? The difference between Dell, HP, etc. and Apple is(was?) that Apple's costed more but you were getting a much better experience. That used to be true up until right about the time the iPhone was released. Since then it seems that Apple's quality has gone down the tubes largely because I think they are trying to spread their engineering resources too thin. There is word out there that they are constructing a new campus, so maybe Apple's name will again be synonymous with quality, but thats not for a while. I don't mind paying for quality, but if you are going to deliver a buggy product, then don't charge me a lot of money. Simple as that.

Re:QC?

[Achromatic1978]

[[citation]], please.

Re:QC?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

But there are more people with no problems with Leopard than people with no problems with Vista.

How would you or anybody else know? The people with no problems don't bitch. The people who do bitch aren't necessarily even people with the product to have problems with. Noise on the internet != scientific statistical survey.

Re:QC?

[DriedClexler]

Advertising it "just works" means people will go out of their way to prove it doesn't.

Um, I have two words for you: No.

In my experience, Apple rarely gets it right, even when *I* go out of my way to make it work. For example, using the help feature. I tried to add a .flac track to iTunes, and it didn't work. Okay, so I need to check which file types are allowed on iTunes and iPods. So I use their help feature, and search for every possible combination of words that would call up that information, and every time got no results. Try it for yourself!

How the hell can you make a help feature so unhelpful?

Same problem for repositioning the titles on an iMovie project. No combination of words calls up the answer and you eventually have to google it, only to find other people trying to figure it out themselves. Apple's motto seems to be "help feature? Um, go google it yourself, bro, ain't our problem."

Another example: extracting stills from a movie I made in iMovie. Should be a simple, basic feature, right? Well, using the "help" feature, the only way I could see to do it was to add that still as a clip to the project, and then save it, and then delete it, and then manually move the still from the depths of hell in Finder to where I actually want it.

When I complained about this to Mac fanboys, I got a lecture about how I shouldn't complain until I learn the Mac way of doing things. Upon closer examination, the method I already tried was the Mac way, and then I got rationalizations about how, oh, I really should use the PAY software for such ultra-advanced functionality, and how, oh, COME on, it's not THAT big of an unnecessary hassle.

Yeah, you heard that right: in the GOLD STANDARD of user interface design, how *dare* I complain about tedious, unnecessary steps. I probably wouldn't complain so much except for people claiming Apple's good at interface design when it's so clearly not.

Re:QC?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be right if you argued percentages but Vista has more satisfied customers on just pure numbers alone. It helps if your OS actually has the market share to prove what it can do. ;)

Re:QC?

[mvdwege]

The media? Hard on Apple?! They've been giving them free advertising for the iPod and the iPhone for two years running.

Maybe, just maybe, the rampant fanboism is no longer able to paper over the fact that the emperor has no clothes?

Mart

Re:QC?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a company that advertises that they have no bugs, they certainly have a lot.

I totally agree that Apple has had its share of bugs lately. And, in fact, always... all their 10.x.0 releases have been buggy, specially Cheetah, Tiger and Leopard. Let's not even talk about Classic Mac OS (OK, not Jobs' fault). And HW... hmmm... white spots in the screen of this PB G4 that I still use and love? (OK, fixed by warranty). And the count goes un.

BUT... if you look carefully at the adds, you will realize Apple NEVER says they have no bugs. The only say that they have far less bugs than Microsoft. And that's....EASY.

Re:QC?

[Lars T.]

But there are more people with no problems with Leopard than people with no problems with Vista.

How would you or anybody else know? The people with no problems don't bitch. The people who do bitch aren't necessarily even people with the product to have problems with. Noise on the internet != scientific statistical survey.

Isn't it odd that you use this in defense of Microsoft in a discussion about an "article" that is nothing but a link to a bunch of people bitching about an Apple product? Ignoring that all people bitching seem to have D-Link routers?

Re:QC?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Isn't it odd that you use this in defense of Microsoft in a discussion about an "article" that is nothing but a link to a bunch of people bitching about an Apple product?

Nope.

Wouldn't be weird if I said there were only 96 people in the world that are having this problem?

Re:QC?

[sqlrob]

I agree. Apple does boneheaded things like this, they broke 64-bit in Tiger with a patch, WPA2 is broken on Tiger for me and has been that way since the beginning...

Step 28 ...

[Random BedHead Ed]

Step 28 of the Apple Product Cycle. Step 28 for the iPhone was the chipset, so maybe that's the problem with these scratches ... er, blue screens ... er, faulty plastic backs ... er, WPA network errors as well.

Slow news day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Apple article? Why not pepper up the article lineup with SCO articles, three a day. Yeah, that's it.

Yawn.

Re:Slow news day?

[Yvan256]

They can't afford to pay SCO 1998$ every day.

The Sony Syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems it's very hard to push stuff out quickly without getting into quality issues. Problem for Apple is that they depend even more than Microsoft on locking in their users. One bad experience, and people will take the pain to find an alternative, and then escape.

I love my Mac gadgets but the deal seems to be going wrong, and my next MP3 player and phone is going to have to be a lot more open.

Re:The Sony Syndrome

[amdpox]

Yes, I think the improvement of usability of open platforms is going to see Apple having problems with their traditional proprietary approach... let's hope that alternatives like Android get some mainstream press and that the consumers start voting with their wallets.

Re:The Sony Syndrome

[KasperMeerts]

Some quality issues? OK.

But WPA encryption is something huge!
Since WEP doesn't work this means that you can only connect to unsecured network. And I'm not going to remove encryption because Timmy with his iPod Touch wants to check his mails.

Re:The Sony Syndrome

[aix tom]

And I'm not going to remove encryption because Timmy with his iPod Touch wants to check his mails.

Unless "Timmy" is your clueless CEO and goes "Me got present from wife. Me want to check email"

Re:The Sony Syndrome

[Ilgaz]

The needless "hurry" and pissing contest has hit both Microsoft and Apple, it is really hard to understand why they hurry.

It is not just iPod/iPhone... Look at Vista first edition, Leopard 10.5.0 and lately, iTunes 8 for Windows.

What do they have to prove? What would happen if Vista and Leopard was delayed for more testing? What is that hurry for?

Re:The Sony Syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

If you try to look at it outside the fanboi/hater perspective, you could say that even Microsoft was ok, until it became mainstream. Apple "just worked" until they became mainstream, and it's likely Android/Linux whatever, will not work "better" when it becomes mainstream.

Quite probably because the problem isn't in the tech, it's in the users...

Re:The Sony Syndrome

[phoenix321]

I'd be surprised if your CEO has no blackberry.

On the other hand, if you and your CEO are unable to collectively decide that checking emails with the new toy is sooo not worth risking company secrets and the infrastructure change required by this, then you're either incompetent (if you can't explain the disadvantages in layman's terms so CEO understands) OR you are in a doomed company anyway (CEO that doesn't understand even the most basic tenets of security and confidentiality).

If your CEO successfully forces the entire IT department into submission to unencrypt the company wifi access after consulting your educated opinion, file a memo, update your resume - and bail out when ready.

No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine works at two different locations that I set up.

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

mine works as well...

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

mine too

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

And mine doesn't. Which is fun, because after it fails, you get to re-enter the entire 64 digit WPA key on the little keyboard, which would be much less annoying if the fuckers at Apple didn't place the numbers and letters on different keypads that you have to toggle between.

When I tried using WEP, the damned thing didn't work with a standard password, so I got to enter that in hex too. (That did work.)

So you'd think someone, somewhere, would realize a little "hex" keyboard would be a godsend when entering wireless keys if they're not going to allow copy-and-paste.

Or they could be REALLY smart and allow you to set the key from iTunes.

But in any case, it in fact does not actually work. So now we have several anecdotes, and therefore data, right?

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

And mine...

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

let me check...yep...mine too

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine works too... Linksys WRT150N router and WPA.

Re:No problems here...

[phoenix321]

Mac is soo great, it just wo

Re:No problems here...

[samkass]

Both my iPhone 3G and my original series iPod Touch have been working flawlessly with WPA, so the problem is apparently not in the core 2.1 OS...

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

after it fails, you get to re-enter the entire 64 digit WPA key on the little keyboard, which would be much less annoying if the fuckers at Apple didn't place the numbers and letters on different keypads that you have to toggle between.

When I tried using WEP, the damned thing didn't work with a standard password, so I got to enter that in hex too. (That did work.)

So you'd think someone, somewhere, would realize a little "hex" keyboard would be a godsend when entering wireless keys if they're not going to allow copy-and-paste.

Or they could be REALLY smart and allow you to set the key from iTunes.

Who the hell has a 64 digit hex key? 1999 called. They want their wireless auth tech back. Get a router that can do normal-length non-hex keys like everyone else

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

answer: zune 80gb (or larger). It's slick and I've had no problems with my wireless encryption.

Re:No problems here...

[rob1980]

Good for you.

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

so tfa that says in 2nd gen didn't light anything off for you huh? Your .02 is pretty much worthless

Re:No problems here...

[tyrione]

let me check...yep...mine too

Maybe it just works for ACs?

Re:No problems here...

[jbtule]

I'm posting this from a 2G on a wpa2 encrypted dynex access point. I've also connected to a airport express base station with wpa2.

Re:No problems here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can do that from your computer, using the enterprise deployment tools. I don't know if it works on iPod Touch though, it does on iPhone.

The idea is that you create a profile and then open it on your device (mail it to yourself, or put it on a website). You can put username and password in the profile if you like.

Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[stickystyle]

Actually reading the linked thread (I know, I know..) the problem seems more linked to D-Link routers + iPod Touch, not iPod Touch can't do WPA. "Apple has yet to respond"? I don't see that anyone on that thread filled a bug report, how the hell do you expect them to respond unless you tell them???

Why the hell did this get promoted to the front page?

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[jellomizer]

Because this is Slashdot. If a story can be sensationalized it will, especially if it twisted to prove the following...

• Microsoft software is extremely unstable, and the use of it is relegated by idiots.
• A popular product used by non-geeks, are all faulty, and made by an evil company Apple, Google falls here too
• A company who doesn't fully support the GPL, any actions they do are considered evil. reason for this apple hate
• Any attempt to collect data from users even if the users use their own servers is a violation of privacy.
• Any attempt to incorporate new technology, will lead to the death of human kind
• The government is out to get you
• Everything is black and white, there is no middle ground, or good intelligent reason for what you disagree with.
• All Religious people are against science.
• All the above is void if it makes Linux or the GPL look good.

The general attitude of Slashdot is a collection of millions of bitter/mean people, who is thinks complaining about everything, will eventually make them right if something goes wrong. I think this attitude comes from the end of WWII where after seeing the evils that the Nazis did, with all the Germans just kinda letting it happen. Caused a Over Hyper reaction where everything that anyone does is evil. Then if it does turn out to be evil you can go on record of being against it, a freedom fighter of sorts etc... While the truth you were just some bitter guy who hated everything.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not suprised, since WPA doesn't work between certain Broadcom chipsets (HP, I'm looking at you losers) and D-Link routers.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[phoxix]

Why the hell did this get promoted to the front page?

We have personally confirmed the failing on three DLink models, and one Linksys model so far. Thread shows other Linksys models and Belkin models as well it appears.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8066893#8066893

Thats why it made the front page.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[Anonymous Coward]

does this constitute an occurrence of Godwin's law?

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[MobyTurbo]

does this constitute an occurrence of Godwin's law?

If it does constitute Godwin's law, and I think it does, all discussions on this topic must stop... Though since this is slashdot, that is unlikely to happen. ;-)

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it does constitute Godwin's law, and I think it does, all discussions on this topic must stop... Though since this is slashdot, that is unlikely to happen. ;-)

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." -- Godwin

There's nothing about stopping or any need for slashbaiting.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[ColdWetDog]

The general attitude of Slashdot is a collection of millions of bitter/mean people, who is thinks complaining about everything, will eventually make them right if something goes wrong.

You do realize that if you replace "Slashdot" with pretty much any other group of humans this side of Cute Overload (who have their own problems), it would still work?

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[MobyTurbo]

If it does constitute Godwin's law, and I think it does, all discussions on this topic must stop... Though since this is slashdot, that is unlikely to happen. ;-)

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." -- Godwin There's nothing about stopping or any need for slashbaiting.

ISTR an extension of Godwin's law in "New Hacker's Dictionary" and the "Jargon File" that did say that:

Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any _intentional_ triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.

Though, as I pointed out, there is no such rule here.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I think this attitude comes from the end of WWII where after seeing the evils that the Nazis did, with all the Germans just kinda letting it happen.

I think it's because people here use opinions to make themselves sound intelligent. "I wouldn't use the most popular product on the market. Instead, I'd use this one you've never heard of that's harder to use because it supports an obscure protocol that doesn't actually do me any good but the acronym sounds cool. Go back to your kiddie product."

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[jesuscash]

If you RTFA (er... thread), you will see that OP did file a bug report: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8057137#8076944

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[stickystyle]

Okay, there is a bug report there, missed that post. I will concede my remark about not filing a bug report.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[onefriedrice]

Personally, I find this the most accurate summary of slashdot groupthink that I have ever come across. Well done.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[mako1138]

My roommate got a MacBook recently, and he couldn't connect to our D-Link router. The fix was to put his MAC address directly into the router's DHCP config.

Actually, this isn't the first time this has happened. It's occured with Thinkpads and Linksys cards, and my D-Link card. Doing the MAC address thing and assigning static IPs solved a lot of problems with this router.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[garote]

Mod parent up to a permanent position on the front page of Slashdot.

Re:Problem seems to be with D-Link routers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple bashing seems to be the new flavor that's why the article is on the front page.

Stop the presses!

[kiwioddBall]

Someone released some software with a bug in it!!! Thats never happened before!!!

Re:Stop the presses!

[Harold Halloway]

But this is from a closed-source company that had the arrogance to claim that its products 'just work'.

This is WPA, ffs. It's not rocket science to get this to work properly.

Apple has failed to test its product properly before releasing it. That is worthy of comment and condemnation.

Re:Stop the presses!

[ColdWetDog]

Apple has failed to test its product properly before releasing it.

I'll bet you a month's subscription to Slashdot that it works on Airports ...

They probably tested it with all the Airport's they could find in the building. What's your problem?

Re:Stop the presses!

[StrangeTikiGod]

Certainly works on my Airport.

Re:Stop the presses!

[Firehed]

Because open-source companies have never claimed that it's products just work? I'm not making accusations or defending either side here, but would like to point out that Mozilla continues to deny the existence of memory leaks in Firefox, which I'd argue are no more or less rocket science to fix than implementing WPA.

And FWIW, I don't think I've once seen Apple, Inc. make the claim that it's products "just work". The myriad fanboys and evangelists do, certainly. My experience has been since my switch several years back that they work a lot better than the competition, and tend to fail much more gracefully when failure occurs. I have certainly not experienced perfection in any sense of the word.

Re:Stop the presses!

[plumby]

And FWIW, I don't think I've once seen Apple, Inc. make the claim that it's products "just work".

Why you'll love a Mac

"Unlike other computers that require you to spend hours configuring devices, a Mac connects to your digital camera, wireless device, or external drive and just works. Really."

Nokia first

[Anonymous Coward]

Big deal, lots of Nokia's have EAP bugs meaning they can't connect to enterprise networks defying the whole damn point of buying them in some cases.

WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Average]

A real geek has a long random key for WPA, and passes it around on a pen drive.

Except the time I brought a Touch home from work for a while.

Copy and paste? What do you mean, no copy and paste? One of the key "insanely great" f'ing innovations of the 1984 Macintosh, and it can't be done?

Shook my head at that one.

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

A real geek has a long random key for WPA, and passes it around on a pen drive.

Except the time I brought a Touch home from work for a while.

Copy and paste?

How would a thumb drive attach to a Touch? Or maybe I'm missing something...

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Average]

In the case of the touch, you'd mail it to yourself, save it as a Text note, view it from a temporary webpage, or something similar.

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

A real geek uses eap-tls

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

While the absence of copy/paste is a valid complaint, you utterly fail your example by suggesting transmitting the key over the public internet in plaintext. By the time you're willing to do that, just use a friggin' passphrase--a properly-made one will be far more secure than anything passed via the channels you indicate.

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[miknix]

A real geek uses eap-tls

A real geek has a long random key for WPA, and passes it around on a pen drive.

A real hacker leaves the network open and uses openvpn to connect to his gateway.

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[mjwx]

A real geek has a long random key for WPA, and passes it around on a pen drive.

But a true geek has a 63 character randomly generated complex WPA Key.

But I agree with you there, its safer to have a complex password stored on a text file on your desktop labelled "WPA Key" then to have a short and easy to remember WPA Key because if they can read that file they've already gotten past your security (Although I'm certain that the file itself will be password protected, although my interfaces file is not).

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Shimmer]

Copy and paste? One of the key "insanely great" f'ing innovations of the 1984 Macintosh, and it can't be done?

Apple did not invent copy and paste.

Re:WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

you can not even run more than 2 apps at same time..

reminds me of good old DOS days..

kdawson FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it be? An overrated, uninvestigated, purely speculated article?
Yes it is! One may be confused at first but one quick glance to the author shall reveal..
The Lord of FUD...
The Master of Hype...
The Weaver of Confusion!
The one and only...
kdawson!

Seriously, my cat has better insight and it only knows how to use a mouse

So... Don't buy one

[Colin Smith]

Problem solved.

 

Re:So... Don't buy one

[TuaAmin13]

Agreed. Or, if you're dying to have one, wait till the inevitable bug fix (first making sure that that "fix" doesn't break anything else critical) and then buy one.

Re:iredintly thye dorfomarnt

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.

Be fair and balanced

[Anonymous Coward]

Spell Apple with the Euro symbol for the E.

Get a linksys router then

[dredwerker]

My touch 2g with firmware 2.1.1 works fine with wpa2.

Re:Yet another Mac story ... who cares!

[egr]

I like shMac better

Lots of devices cannot do WPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Problems with WPA implementations are rather disappointingly common. In some cases it is quite inexplicable. An Asus Eee PC with Xandros cannot connect to WPA, but the same Eee PC with Mandriva can.

Re:Yet another Mac story ... who cares!

[bucky0]

Cool, a soon as there's an "open" device that supports all the features, I'm in.

Where did I put my DIY chip foundry.....

new BRCM chip

[hedley]

That new iPod touch has a hw change on its Wifi. The disassembly showed it to be a BT+Wifi single chip design. Presumably its just a host driver/fw issue that will get resolved soon.

H.

An old problem, resurfaced

[brundlefly]

Actually, this problem has existed for over a year, albeit with other Apple products. Many MacBook Pros running Leopard cannot connect through D-Link routers using WPA.

I know: I have one of these machines. In my house we have two iPhones (1st gen) and one MacBook Pro (Tiger) which connect just fine through my D-Link. But the MacBook Pro running Leopard cannot. (It can, however, connect just fine to an Airport device using WPA.)

I don't think it's a D-Link bug. Or else why would everything else under the sun work just fine, including all the guest machines who come over and log in? And it's not a general wireless issue, because the buggy Leopard machine connects through lots of other wireless routers.

I googled this a while back and there are a few other folks who have experienced this. No relief via any Leopard updates, either.

Re:An old problem, resurfaced

[Super_Z]

I have a D-Link DIR-655 set up with WPA. I'm typing this comment on a MacBook Pro running Leopard. Never had a problem with this combo. Neither has my wife with her MacBook/Leopard.

Are you using 802.11n? Compatibility issues are rife with this protocol :-/

Re:An old problem, resurfaced

[Buran]

I have a D-Link draft 802.11n router, Leopard (latest version as of today), and a Macbook Pro and it connects just fine. The problem isn't just n+leopard+Intel macs. I do not, however, have an iPod touch of any kind, just an iPhone, and that works fine with my network.

We're already owed one update this month as it is (push is missing, ahem) so hopefully that one will contain a fix for the WPA problems.

I'm not suprised

[Anonymous Coward]

THe WPA2 authentication in my MacBook doesn't work very well either.

jesuscash writes ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy kikes Batman! You're right!

Not sure what the problem is.

[r00td43m0n]

My new 16GB arrived Friday and it is able to connect to my network fine.

I hate entering the key/password.

[antdude]

I was entering a key/password for a client's new iPod Touch (v1 firmware). I kept hitting the wrong buttons and keys (my fingers suck) and I don't know if I made typos (stupid asterisks). Horrible usability. I bet it was designed for open/unencrypted WAPs. It took me like five attempts and 15 minutes to get it to work!

Re:I hate entering the key/password.

[mr100percent]

You do realize firmware 2.0 upgrade shows you the last key you pressed on the password screen, right? This problem is gone as of July.

Re:I hate entering the key/password.

[antdude]

Ah. I am using v1 but the upgrade isn't free. :( Funny how my client just bought iPod Touch two days ago! Even new ones aren't free to upgrade from what I read.

Re:I hate entering the key/password.

[Buran]

It is if you already have 2.0, not if you don't. (note: I am one of the people who thinks that the SOX explanation for the charges doesn't ring true, but the charge is there nevertheless).

Re:I hate entering the key/password.

[mvdwege]

Wow! Another Apple innovation!

Mart

Fat Steve/Skinny Steve

[slyborg]

It's sort of the inverse of Fat Elvis/Skinny Elvis.

Things have really gone down the intertubes since Steve went all macrobiotic and emaciated on us. There seems to be a definite correlation between Steve's mass and Apple product quality.

Maybe it's time for Jobs to spend some "quality time" at Old Country Buffet.

Of course

[alisson]

Of course they haven't responded. They never do until they release the fix.

Patience! You can switch to WEp for a few days if you need to browse the internet on a tiny screen when your computer is right next to you THAT badly.

Zune - Engineers - Apple Software is bad...

[TheNetAvenger]

Zune - It takes Apple engineers to make it look good.

I know the WiFi is a latent 'me too' feature of the iPod, but holy crap Apple, between this and your handling of 3G you are starting to make your engineers look really stupid.

(PS This is news worthy, as I know a few people that have been waiting for this device and turning off WPA is probably not going to be an option for them at home, let alone at work where is mandatory.)

Re:Zune - Engineers - Apple Software is bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is restricted to WPA on certain routers, is not a new bug, and WPA2 still works fine. Your over-exaggerated ire at an over-exaggerated bug makes your pretentious hipster attitude all the more obvious. Next time RTFA before acting like an assclown.

Re:Zune - Engineers - Apple Software is bad...

[tyrione]

I suppose you didn't get the memo that the 3G issue was an AT&T issue?

What "wired equivalent" means

[tepples]

Since WEP doesn't work

A 26-digit WEP key + MAC whitelist is better than nothing. Any cracker who gets in will have demonstrated intent to penetrate your network, possibly the same amount of intent as someone who finds and plugs into a wired Ethernet jack. That's why it's called "wired equivalent privacy".

Re:What "wired equivalent" means

[mvdwege]

Uhm, no?

WEP+MAC whitelisting is fake security. MACs can be spoofed easily, and WEP is broken.

And as for your comparison to wired Ethernet: when was the last time you saw wired Ethernet hooked up to a hub? Because that's what the equivalent of wireless is: broadcast traffic that anyone can read.

Mart

Character encoding (5:erocS)

[tepples]

Spell Apple with the Euro symbol for the E.

Can't, reliably, unless you mean actually spelling out the three-letter currency sign as in "ApplEUR" or "AppGBPe". Due to past abuses of directional overrides, Slashdot is not configured to work well with code points U+0100 and above. Heck, I haven't even got Firefox 3 + Slashdot D2 to work reliably with U+00A0 through U+00FF.

Re:Character encoding (5:erocS)

[LearnToSpell]

Appl€

Re:Character encoding (5:erocS)

[tepples]

Appl€

So it appears Appl€ (A p p l & e u r o ;) works, and so does App£e (A p p & p o u n d ; e). Thank you.

Re:Character encoding (5:erocS)

[mvdwege]

Ok, first you pretend that WEP offers any actual security, and then you show that you don't get HTML entities: € works just fine. Turn in your geek card, please?

Intent

[tepples]

I would assume that almost everybody capable of cracking WEP also knows how to spoof a MAC adress

Remember that if you and someone else are running away from a tiger, you don't have to outrun the tiger. Likewise, if you use WEP + MAC whitelisting on your AP, someone will hit the open APs long before yours. So I would assume that almost everybody who actually does crack WEP does so with the same level of intent as someone who enters your premises and connects to a wired Ethernet jack, and if you can catch the crook, you can haul his behind to small claims court.

How well does webmail work with PGP?

[tepples]

Websites that need secure channels already do so with SSL, email can be done with PGP

Unless your e-mail buddies don't know how to hook up PGP support in their e-mail clients, or they use webmail and don't have access to Firefox with Greasemonkey.

Re:How well does webmail work with PGP?

[foniksonik]

And how does WPA2 secure your email once outside your network?

Interesting

[nog_lorp]

My mom's airbook gets the same problem. It deauthenticates every like 5 minutes while she is using it.

wpa doesent work for me eather

[denguydj]

i am using an iphone first gen and it has issues major issues since 2.xx however 2.1 has fix a lot its to little to late and Something in the 2.XX software broke WPA for me

Don't try to outrun the tiger

[tepples]

MACs can be spoofed easily, and WEP is broken.

If a hungry tiger is chasing you and another explorer, you don't have to outrun the tiger, just the other explorer.

Some devices, such as the Nintendo DS handheld computer, will never be upgraded to work with WPA. If you have legacy devices on your network, the point isn't perfect security as much as "good enough" security. A wardriver confronted with SSID Foo with WEP + MAC whitelisting and SSID Baz with no access control at all will try to connect to Baz before Foo. True, a few minutes of logging WEP packets can result in connecting to your network much of the time, but so can a few minutes of breaking and entering. If you can prove that a wardriver targeted you, you might be able to take him to small claims court for "theft" of service.

Might be partially a DLink problem

[k_yarina]

From a quick RTFA the initial user has a DLink router.

FWIW, I bought a DLink wireless router a year or so back for my home network, don't recall the model, that would not do WPA2/TKIP with Windows (yeah, I know) Vista or XP, or my PSP. I'm an experienced network engineer, not a novice. It took a couple days fooling with it, several support emails, and then several hours on the phone with DLink before they finally said WPA was broke and to use WEP. IIRC Windoz was logging authentication errors.

The DLink got returned and replaced with a Netgear WGR614 that worked the first time, and still works today.

Update on Fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs has stated that a patch has been written, however it can only be applied after an offering of the users blood through the new iBleed interface released today. The iBleed comes in two versions, iBleed Lightly, for those who only wish to get the d&^m thing working again, and the iBleed Profusely, for the hardcore apple cultis...I mean, fan. The iBleed has encountered some bugs however, as it will not accept the blood of those with a soul.

The iBleed can be used with any of the iPod technologies, for those who wish to pledge their continuing allegiance to the Priests of Darwin and their overlord. Pricing starts at $199 for the iBleed Lightly, and $349 for the iBleed Profusely.

Hipsters and fanboys, round 2, FIGHT!

[garote]

His point is that you have to connect to Microsoft and send them your licensing information in order to download a patch which THEN makes your connection secure. It's a Catch-22. By comparison, the iPod touch does not send anything vital anywhere when you connect, and when a firmware update is available, it will be downloaded via a separate device, and involve NO exchange of licensing information. Even if WPA2 was broken as well as WPA (which it isn't), this would still not be as bad.

Lest you forget, the poster was responding to the question: "As for your comparison with Microsoft, consider what you would be saying if this had happened with the Zune." His response? Forget the Zune. Windows ITSELF has had worse problems.

Also, ease up on the anti-fanboy hipster angle. People can discuss whatever they want here. And they have been discussing Windows security holes for a long, long, LONG time.

Re:Hipsters and fanboys, round 2, FIGHT!

[jmpeax]

His point is that you have to connect to Microsoft and send them your licensing information in order to download a patch which THEN makes your connection secure.

And that makes more sense? Without WGA, you'd still have to connect to download the update. Or here's an idea: you could connect using an Ethernet cable, or enable a white list on your wireless router, if you deem it such a security concern!

And anyway, that's not his point, is it?

Apple may not publicly acknowledge bugs, but at least they're not forcing you ensure you've got a Genuine iPod before being allowed to get to a patch that adds functionality that was left out entirely to begin with.

His "point" is about license validation, not security, and is pretty absurd when you consider that he'd rather have his OS creator not acknowledge bugs than require clients to provide license authentication before they receive updates (which, by the way, are included in the licence price). As for his dig at MS not including functionality for WPA2, this really is wrong: for a start, and as I have said before, when you buy a licence for Windows, this includes these updates. WPA2 functionality has been available since 2005. The reason he is complaining is presumably because he has a pirated copy of Windows. Well cry me a fucking river. You don't like MS/Windows/proprietary software, fine, but by stealing it you're just as bad as those who steal code from OSS projects in my book. And you especially don't have the right to complain because your free use of a commercial product doesn't enable you to get further support from its developers.

People can discuss whatever they want here.

Then why would you presume to tell me what I can and can't say ("ease up on the anti-fanboy hipster angle")?

they have been discussing Windows security holes for a long, long, LONG time.

Neither you nor the GP has discussed a Windows security hole.

It's really sad to see people so beguiled by a company that they'll do anything, including reasoning like idiots, to defend it. Apple releases a product with a security problem, so the response is that Microsoft validates client licenses before allowing updates to be downloaded.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Re:Hipsters and fanboys, round 2, FIGHT!

[Firehed]

His "point" is about license validation, not security, and is pretty absurd when you consider that he'd rather have his OS creator not acknowledge bugs than require clients to provide license authentication before they receive updates (which, by the way, are included in the licence price). As for his dig at MS not including functionality for WPA2, this really is wrong: for a start, and as I have said before, when you buy a licence for Windows, this includes these updates

Who said anything about my preference on acknowledging bugs? It's a general trend in any company that has shareholders, including both Apple and Microsoft, that they don't admit to problems until they've been fixed. I think it's stupid from both companies, but they may actually be legally required to act that way due to certain laws that govern publicly traded corporations - you can't intentionally decrease shareholder value, and I'd suggest (though not necessarily agree) that publicly acknowledging a security issue would do just that.

Neither you nor the GP has discussed a Windows security hole.

Windows not supporting WPA2 at all out of the box (like 2.1 iPod Touches) isn't a security hole? Either it's a problem for both companies or it's a problem for neither. Microsoft had the problem a long time ago and consequently fixed it some time ago; Apple's had the problem since last Tuesday and will almost certainly address it in the next software update. I merely pointed out that in order to get the equivalent security patch on the Microsoft platform, you need to authenticate your software. They have every right to do that. I'm honestly surprised that they don't cut off updates entirely for non-validating systems - assuming that the software was validly flagged as non-paid, they have no entitlement whatsoever to any updates.

I'm NOT siding with Apple here. I'm a Mac user, but I give them shit equally to any other company or organization when they deserve it. This shouldn't have slipped through, but bugs happen. They'll fix it and that'll be the end of it.

Re:Hipsters and fanboys, round 2, FIGHT!

[garote]

"You're complaining about license validation, therefore you're a pirate! I hate pirates, grr!" Nice, uh, "counterpoint" there. The Catch-22 is not over piracy, it's that if all you have is wireless, you have to send your own license info in an insecure manner to get a wireless security patch.

"People are so beguiled they will do anything to defend Apple! Grr, the fanboys, grr!"

The original poster has it right... Slashdot editors are submitting inflammatory summaries in the Apple section, and people either flame in tune with them, or they offer corrections or say ho-hum and get labeled "fanboys". Surely you've noticed the pattern. I suspect it's the usual journalistic sensationalism to drive up page hits.

"Users Report Faulty WPA In 2nd-Gen IPod Touch" : ... when connecting to certain Linksys routers. "Apple has failed to respond!" ... post submitted to the front page before anyone even filed a bug report. Yawn-worthy.

"ITunes 8 a Real Killer App; Taking Down Vista" : Turns out it's a fault in Vista's USB driver, as unplugging your HP printer eliminates the problem. Percentage of people affected: Small. Non-news.

"iPhone Takes Screenshots of Everything You Do" : Yeah, saving a texture to disk of where you last were in an app before you hit the home button is, like, Everything You Do, and cause for panic. Utter non-news.

"Apple Losing Touchscreen War" : The actual six paragraph "article" is a content-free blurb about how Apple doesn't have dominance in the Asian market. Once again, non-news.

"AT&T Slaps Family With a $19,370 Cell Phone Bill" : WTF?

Et cetera. I've been employed as a Windows programmer, a Mac programmer, and an X-Windows programmer over the last 15 years, and browsed Slashdot for the last 10. I know a hack-job when I see one. Basically, we're being trolled by Slashdot's own article submitters. "Consider what you would be saying if this had happened with the Zune?" Remember the Zune 30? That didn't even support WPA2 at all. A firmware patch eventually "fixed" that. Meantime, was there a front-page Slashdotting? No. There's your answer.

I've also learned that people who complain about "fanboys" are like people who complain about "immigrants": Insecure about their own qualifications, and obsessed with the notion, "I was here first! Before it was cool!"

Grow up.

My son is having a similar problem with his....

[CliffH]

It has intermittent problems with connection failure and not reestablishing connections when turning it back on. Once he does get it reconnected it is a crapshoot as to whether or not it will actually browse to anywhere. It's a bug but one that should have been caught pretty early on in testing. BTW, not isolated to DLink by a LONG shot as I have a Micronet AP I'm using at the moment.

Sharks in the Haterade

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has turned into a Apple disfest. A showcase of boring nerd judgement, with each headline just more chum in the waters, sending you sharks into a feeding frenzy over the bloody chunks.
Lame.
I say this reluctantly, but ya'll is a bunch of haters.

Apple doing a LOT of shoddy work lately

[pcause]

Apple seems to be doing a lot of pretty shoddy development and testing lately. The iPhone 3G had many, many well documented problems, the iTunes 8.0 update crashed Vista and now this. How can anyone release a WiFi product without testing WPA/WPA2? Amazing. Clearly they care more about glitz and PR than product quality.

apple

[Friendly Pyro]

you see if Microsoft did this there would be an uproar and they'd lose millions of dollars. Apple does it and everyone's like "oh thats okay".

It just works...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple says it so it must be true. Apple can do no wrong! ;)

All those bugs reported lately are just lies... it all just works!

Out of sight, out of mind?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had no problem using an Airport device, but after reading this I tried with a D-Link and it wouldn't work. And since I don't own one of those...
No other complaints, I love this thing.