Devolo

[Eberhard Roloff]

Billie Erin Walsh wrote:

>>
>> On the one hand, the
>>   electrictiy meter is the natural limit of your network. So when all of 
>> your town can connect to your network, then you are the one that is 
>> paying for all of the towns electricity bills. ;-)) Just let me know 
>> which town you are living in, I would love to move.
>>   
> 
>  From the Devolo website:
> 
> "Is the electric meter a natural boundary of the dLAN® network? Can my 
> neighbour intrude on my network? Only in rare cases does the electric 
> meter attenuate the signal to that extent. Therefore, for security 
> reasons, we recommend that you always use the device's internal 
> encryption. Enable it by entering a password other than the factory 
> password or using the encryption button."

okay. What is called "rare cases" here, in reality did not happen to me 
once, having done about 50 installations. You might not believe it, but 
I always have a spare device that I use to try to test from "outside". 
Furthermore the key here is "encryption"
> 

> 
> If one Devolo can encrypt it another would be able to de-encrypt it.

Sure, otherwise it would not work.;-) The emphasis here is on "shared 
key", which you might know from your wireless networks
> 
> Again, from Devolo:
> 
> 
> Hogwash! Anyone with a decent knowledge of radio could "de-modulate" the 
> signal in a matter of seconds. After that they have access to the "raw 
> data" and encryption information becomes available.
> 
While hacking wireless it more or less a hobby for malicious kids, I 
cannot recall a single incident where this happened to dLAN.

Just to iterate:
(Almost) always your network is separate within your household so no one 
outside your household can get physical access to it AND additionally it 
is encrypted with a key that is common to your own devices, and only to 
your own devices.

>> So instead of spreading FUD, you better read it up or try it out for 
>> yourself.
>>   
> 
> Maybe you need to brush up on your radio theory and application.

I fully agree with you on that one.

Unfortunately even brushing up my poor radio knowledge will not help me 
to crack devolo networks in any foreseeable way.;-))
> 
>> Again there is nothing like a network cable, indeed! It is very cheap, 
>> very fast and very secure. Just when ethernet cabling is no option and 
>> wireless is lousy, then these devices do a great job. In most cases, 
>> they are simply WAY better than wireless.
>>   
> 
> Agreed as to cabling. However wifi connections don't need to be poor. If 
> properly done, and with proper equipment, it should be very successful.

Sure, but wifi lacks two things:

Performance usually is pretty poor and it gets even worse when more than 
two machines want to eat up your wireless bandwidth. Sadly this does NOT 
improve much with Draft-N. In comparison dLAN is way better in real life 
situations, although the network bandwidth is also shared with dLAN, 
just as it is with wireless.

Secondly more and more people that I work for, simply do not want to 
have wireless anymore. They do not want to expose their children and 
themselves to more radiation that they absolutely must. dLAN is a very 
welcome alternative here, since your mains doubtlessly are already there 
in your house and you will not alter their already existing irreducible 
radiation.
> 

> 
> Personally, if I was setting up a wireless system as the OP mentioned I 
> would use a Linksys WRT router with dual antennas. Install the DD-WRT 
> firmware on the router. Remove one antenna and place it in a location 
> that isn't to obvious on the lower level. After that you can adjust the 
> power levels on the router and set it up to transmit and receive on both 
> antennas.

Sure you can try, but DD-WRT is not needed, although is is really great. 
The "Antenna-Diversity"-feature is common to any halfway modern routers 
with more than one antenna.

Actually if wireless is what the OP wants to have, it might also make 
sense to use a much more focused antenna like this
0 Euros / 0 Dollars example:
http://www.heise.de/netze/bilderstrecke/486/an0MTE2MzE5

But please note: Such an antenna does not work for draft-n connections 
and 5Ghz WLan will not get any benefit from it, either.

Hmmm, apparently I already was able to brush up my radio knowledge a 
little bit, at least as far as wireless LAN is concerned. ;-)))))))

Kind regards
Eberhard