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Users Report Faulty WPA In 2nd-Gen IPod Touch
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Sep 14, 2008 07:02 AM
from the soft-touch dept.
from the soft-touch dept.
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."
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QC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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
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Re:QC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Step 28 ... (Score:4, Funny)
The Sony Syndrome (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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Re:The Sony Syndrome (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:The Sony Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
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"
Parent
No problems here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mine works at two different locations that I set up.
Re:No problems here... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Problem seems to be with D-Link routers... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [apple.com]
Thats why it made the front page.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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You do realize that if you replace "Slashdot" with pretty much any other group of humans this side of Cute Overload [cuteoverload.com] (who have their own problems), it would still work?
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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. ;-)
Stop the presses! (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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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?
WPA on the iphone/ipod was a joke anyway. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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.
So... Don't buy one (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem solved.
Get a linksys router then (Score:5, Informative)
new BRCM chip (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Zune - Engineers - Apple Software is bad... (Score:3, Funny)
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:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?!".
Parent
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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
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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
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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...
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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 che
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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-vi
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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
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How do you find a MAC address that works?
Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy? (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't get WPA or WPA2, then I think your chances of getting a WTF are close to zero.
Parent
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Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
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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
Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy? (Score:5, Funny)
Is this one of those "if a tree falls in the forest would it make a sound" questions?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 SP
Re:Single apple ipod touch bug slashdot worthy? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
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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 [slashdot.org] like MSFT. And at least MSFT has an excuse,since Bill was stupid enough to leave a dancing monkey [youtube.com] 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 i
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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.....
Character encoding (5:erocS) (Score:3, Informative)
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.org], 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.