wi-fi security?

Jason ubuntu at lakedaemon.net
Thu Aug 6 23:08:06 UTC 2009


Nils Kassube wrote:
[snip]
>> If so, you may want
>> to drop down to a <=32 character passphrase, or try an enterprise
>> solution (openradius, etc).  I find some WAP vendors make assumptions
>> when optimizing their embedded crypto routines.  One of those
>> assumptions usually involves passphrase length.  Anything over the
>> assumed max length bogs down the WAP, or worse, crashes it.
> 
> How often would you see dropouts and can you tell us make/model/version 
> for such a broken WAP?
>

typically I use consumer grade WAPs like the WRT54G (various versions,
not the linux one, though).  The particular incident I'm thinking of was
a few years ago with a friend's WAP.  He liked to find every possible
character the WAP could handle in a passphrase, and then generate a 64
byte random string of them.  He decided to drop down to 32 bytes while
troubleshooting the dropouts.  It turned out to fix the problem.  No WPA
fixed it as well. ;-)

>> If you don't have dropouts in your current configuration, would you
>> mind letting me know make/model/version of the WAP you're using?
> 
> T-COM Speedport W700V (version 01B)
> T-COM Speedport W701V (version unknown)
> Linksys WRT54GL (V1.1)
> 
> While I use the first one daily I have used the others for some time 
> also. And I always use 63 random character passphrases.
> 

Neat, must've been older firmwares.  I'll probe further next time I run
into my buddy.

thx,

Jason.




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