Protected WLAN

Tim ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au
Sun May 22 14:14:42 UTC 2011


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.

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.

I'm still waiting to hear news, though, about some hacker getting into
someone's home garden management system.  Eventually it's got to happen,
with someone thinking they've cracked getting free internet, and all
they can do is turn the fishpond fountain on and off.  ;-)

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
read messages from the public lists.





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