On 05/22/11 07:14, Tim wrote:
Mikkel L. Ellertson:
They do not usually guess. The use a program that monitors the traffic, and captures the MAC address of any system that connects to the router. They then use one of these to connect.
JD:
So, the initial connection request goes in the clear! Now that's security!! :)
It has to work that way. You connect a route, then encrypt traffic that will go through it. The connection setup isn't doing anything that gives away secrets, it's just connecting two things together.
I was referring to the use of MAC filtering which is soundly defeated by the transmission of the MAC in the clear. So, MAC filtering is absolutely useless as a security measure. If I turn off my machine, the hacker has my MAC, and will have 1 less thing to worry about getting.
My reliance is then totally on wpa2-psk/aes and a well chosen 63 byte pass-phrase.
And as far as how long does it take. Well, on a network that may have 50 megabit per second speed, sending out numerous relatively smaller packets (all with networking headers) hundreds or thousands of times per second, how long do you think it would take to see data *about* the connections?
Blink, and you'll miss it.
Not with modern day scanners which capture packets continuously.