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Hardware

802.11g Hardware Arrives 195

Posted by timothy from the fewer-wires-better-mood dept.
DBordello writes "There's been quite a scramble as networking companies the world over rush to be the first to bring their 802.11g wireless gear to market. Linksys missed their early December launch date, and a company named Buffalo Technology has risen to steal their thunder. The company today issued a press release announcing their AirStation G54 broadband router access point and wireless CardBus adapter, the first 802.11g draft standard hardware to hit the market. More information can be found at the company's website." Update: 12/31 21:35 GMT by M : The story submitter apparently found this blurb on broadbandreports.com. Hey people, give credit where it's due. Update: 12/31 22:50 GMT by T : Karen Sohl of Linksys writes to say that despite the slip in dates, "Linksys is shipping our line of Wireless-G products. We have been shipping since last week. Honestly not large volume by any means-- but by the end of this week we'll have shipped over 10,000 units to distribution -- Ingram Micro and Tech Data." That's where even large retailers (think Amazon) buy their stock.
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802.11g Hardware Arrives More

802.11g Hardware Arrives

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  • Great! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    More wirless technology that's bound to fail in my crappy house with its big thick walls!

    • Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Simon Field ( 563434 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:02PM (#4990187) Homepage


      We have had great success in buildings with thick walls.

      We use directional antennas such as these [hdcom.com] and these [antennasystems.com] to get very high signal strengths and low noise.

      We use this antenna [hdcom.com] to go between buildings. These [216.91.65.4] also work great for long distances.

      With two of those antennas, we have spanned 2400 feet (and we are planning a similar setup to span a distance of 5 miles).

      Don't give up -- there are easy solutions to thick walls.

    • Drill a hole in every wall so that the radio waves can float through.

    • Re:Great! (Score:2, Informative)

      by aenea ( 34844 )
      Walls, schmalls, you may have issues if it's in the same room and you have 802.11b clients. It looks like most of the bandwidth gains go away if you have an active 802.11b client in the area. BuffaloTech review [smallnetbuilder.com]

  • I'm waiting (Score:3, Funny)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot AT elliotjohnson DOT com> on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @02:51PM (#4990120) Homepage
    for 802.11xp!
  • I can't wait till we can travel ANYWHERE wirelessly and not have to pay... It could happen... ;P

  • 802.11g (Score:5, Funny)

    by checkitout ( 546879 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @02:54PM (#4990134)
    alpha, beta, and now gamma... when's the stable release finally going to be out?

  • On top of things... (Score:5, Funny)

    by My_nickname_is_taken ( 636921 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @02:57PM (#4990158) Journal
    Does this mean my 4Mb token ring is obsolete?

    • Re:On top of things... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:22PM (#4990323) Journal
      Does this mean my 4Mb token ring is obsolete?

      Your post was funny. I know that. I'm bored and I want to write a speech on why Token Ring is a bitch to upgrade.

      Most token ring hubs are 4/16 selectable, but every card needs to be 16 or 4. If even one card is a different speed, your ring comes to a crash. 16Mb token ring hardware is expensive, as is 100Mbit token ring (yes, they make 100Mbit token ring, I have a small test ring set up with it).

      Why not ethernet? Well, in a lot of cases, Token Ring installations were wired with a 4 conductor 14 gauge cable with really odd looking hermaphroditic connectors on them. To move to ethernet requires either an investment in recabling or the purchase of an impedence matching convertor, which I really don't recommend. They will bring your ethernet segment to a crash if you're not careful.

      If you're running 4 MB token ring, you're probably fux0red unless you have a lot of money to burn.
      • What do you mean "burn?" It costs the same to lay 1000bt cat5e(or higher) cable now as cat5 100bt, and the difference in performnce is in multiples of 10-100, depending on your setup, from 4MB token ring. Well worth the cost investment. Better yet, if you've waited this long, it's actually cheaper to lay cable than just 4 years ago, and you can get really slick stuff (fiber backbones to simple switches) at a great distance for much less than the rest of us paid for it.

  • security? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by trance9 ( 10504 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:00PM (#4990176) Homepage Journal

    I'm a little worried about this mad dash to 802.11 technology before any viable security is in place. Of course this is great for those who want to create open networks--but many will use it to create corporate networks, or home networks with unsecured machines attached.

    I'm running an 802.11 network and it drives me crazy that there is no way to wholly secure it: I have to secure each and every host on my network as it's impossible to create any kind of firewall (someone will just hack the air interface and get around my firewall).

    Hopefully in addition to cool new bandwidth there are some hardcore security features in this one. 802.11 is "ad hoc" in more ways than one :-)

    • Re:security? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Stonent1 ( 594886 )
      256bit WEP not enough for you?

      It takes about 15 minutes to crack 64bit wep. A day to crack 128bit wep. I think that 256bit WEP IIRC would in theory take about a month of non-stop monitoring.
      • Firewall, VPN, or SSH. Just tunnel. Put MAC address restrictions in place. Anyone who can spoof a MAC address will probably have other ways of getting in and WEP won't help.

    • Re:security? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by halftrack ( 454203 ) <{jonkje} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:21PM (#4990316) Homepage
      Security is not a hardware issue. If you split open a cat5 that's lying around you can crack right into a unsecure, _wired_ network. Network security is - to most extents - software and transfere protocol reliant and can therefor only exist on a software level. It's fine for vendors to implement hardware firewalling (which really is just hardware implemented software if you get my drift,) but it should not be something to rely on because it's part of the standard (and being part of the standard it would probably be cracked right away.)

      No, do not depend on hardware security and don't ever think it's more secure than software security. Secure your LAN as needed, stay in control and know that pretty much anything that goes through the air can be picked up by virtually anyone. VPN, crypt and tunnell (or do whatever it is those security freaks do), don't trust anyone else to secure your network and data.
      • There is a difference. On my internal wired Network, I don't have to fear someone sniffing packets 24/7. I can put physical safeguards like block public cable spaces, and IPsec filtering is much easier than having to deal with every broadcast second being potentially intercepted.

        And the tools to intercept wireless sniffers is in infancy, and it's at a cat & mouse stage now, so those sniffing have the upper hand. Whereas IDS systems are proven and far easier to setup.

        Security is definately a hardware issue. not as black and white, however it is a lot more difficult to sniff a wire.

      • I think a lot of you guys missed my point. Sure I could run IPSec, but that doesn't really make my life easier.

        I have to go around and secure _every_ client on my network, because I have to fear that my network was broken. With ether cable I know that my network is physically secure--I control the area that the cable runs though. With 802.11 I don't control the area that the radio waves travel through--anybody can and probably will listen.

        Running IPSec isn't a great solution. That protects my bandwidth, but it doesn't protect ME. Someone who cracked WEB could hack any host on my network unless I go through and carefully secure every single one.

        With ethernet cable I can install a firewall between my internal and external network, and then worry a lot less about whether some stupid windows box has an open share. With 802.11 an open share on an internal box is obviously a problem.

        You could firewall down every box so it only listens to IPSec but you still have to keep the TCP stacks up to date or they'll be subject to protocol stack errors.

        I'd feel reasonably secure if 256 bit web actually gave me 256 bits worth of key--but it won't, and WEP can't change the keys either so once it's cracked it's a LOT of work to manually reinstall all the keys--bleh.

        WEB is not secure at 256 bits or any other number: the extra "bits" don't actually increase the security by much at all as the protocol is fundamentally broken. It's not a brute force attack that brings it down. It would NOT take "months" to crack 256 bit keys, it's not an exponential increase over 128 or 64: it's a linear increase because WEP is stupid.

        People are working on fixes to this, what I was getting at is that I wonder how many people realize it ISN'T fixed yet and are rolling out their cool wireless network.

        Just the level of ignorance HERE about it kind of proves my point.
      • If you split open a cat5 that's lying around you can crack right into a unsecure, _wired_ network.
        Yes, but you can easily solve that with physical security. And remember, if you don't have physical security, you don't have any security at all. You can't prevent your wireless packets from being evesdropped with physical security.
    • I am too lazy to enable passwords on my proxy server and WEP can only be enabled through the windows configuration program.

      Define irony: They expect me to install Windows to "secure" my wireless network. WEP cracking will probably take less time than learning my proxy configuration.

      If you "borrow" WAP access like me, be sure to give some back and let others connect from your equipment.

      As for your "wholly securing it", keep any "important" systems behing a wired proxy server. Wireless is great for making my zaurus and iBook more mobile, but I would never use it to let my server connect to my cable modem. Some common sense if your setup will prevent hacking attempts.
    • Well, since the magic that puts Prism -based cards into Access Point (AP) mode is known, you can setup whatever security you want.

      The fact that they are cheaper than most other cards is a big plus as well. 200mW+ Prism cards are available, so you make quite a powerful access point of your own that can include IPSec, SSL, SSH, or whatever else you want... with all the advantages of a AP., rather than having to resort to ad-hoc mode.

  • FYI (Score:5, Informative)

    by Andorion ( 526481 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:02PM (#4990185)
    FYI, 802.11g is the spec for wireless networks that provides data rates of up to 54Mbps (54 Megabits per second.)

    -Berj
  • Just give it a month or whenever Linksys releases theirs, and probably at a cheaper price than Buffalo, then boom, the thunder is back...
    (ok, bad pun, sorry)
  • Check linksys.com before posting stuff like this ...

    This looks more like free advertising than a top story .... and this is fale advertising! They aren't first ;P

    Instead, lets do Buffalo Tech a faovr .... I'm going to tell them to:

    RUN!!!!

    Hareware isn't a profitable business unless you are Cisco, 3Com, HP, Sun, or Compaq. And besides, I'm sure that Micro$haft will beat them out of the market by taking a loss on their hardware until they control the market ....

    Get out, while you still can!!

    • I wondered why their (MS) broadband routers and wireless broadband routers were so much cheaper than the competing linksys, 3com and d-link products...now it's all clear!

    • Re:Hmmmm .... (Score:3, Informative)

      by genka ( 148122 )

      Hareware isn't a profitable business unless you are Cisco, 3Com, HP, Sun, or Compaq.

      You may be wrong. I spoke with Linksys engineer resently, and he told me that they are doing rather well, revenues are up and they don't lay people off. (Linksys is a private company, so their complete financials are not available). They target consumer market and thus have not been hit by downturn.
    • Hareware isn't a profitable business unless you are Cisco

      or even if you *are* Cisco.
    • A little research would show you that the most profitable goods that HP sells are consumer inkjet consumables.

  • Hrrmmmn, (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hawthorne01 ( 575586 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:07PM (#4990220)
    802.11g is out, and MacWorld SF is in a week....

    Given Apple's early adoption of 802.11b, are all us Mac users in for a nice surprise at the the SteveNote regarding wireless?

  • its cheap too! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:08PM (#4990223)
    http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=DEB3 743&cat=pc&blind=

    only $130 for the access point

    The client card is $50

    http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=DE C5 356&cat=pc&blind=

    Not bad.

  • from website: 1 Mbps: 1870ft(570m) outdoor. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:08PM (#4990225) Homepage Journal
    Speed outdoor indoor.
    54 Mbps. 165ft(50m) 65ft(20m)
    18 Mbps: 490ft(150m) 245ft(75m)
    11 Mbps. 590ft(180m) 410ft(125m)
    1 Mbps: 1870ft(570m) 410ft(125m)

    Too bad there aren't any 10Mbs+ *low cost* hardware for let's say 5,000M radius, that would surely be cool for remote regions. Everything is so expensive when you want just a bit more range. It's okay if a community wants to build something behind a bigger pipe, but you need a lot of people to be able to pay off for both the pipe and the hardware at that point. I guess the PDA/cellular combo is still a better option for specific remote cases for now.

    • With a pair of 8db omnidirection antennas and a 30 milliwat card you can quite easily get a couple of kilometres range with 802.11b. With two high-gain dish antennas very long ranges can be achieved. If the right permits can be issued (and if you're trying to do really long range it tends to indicate that you're not likely to be interfering with too much else) you could whack a nice amplifier on the omni setup and improve your range further.

      It looks like 802.11g's ranges at full speed will be maybe 1/3 that of 802.11b. That tends to suggest that maybe the omni route will not be nearly as productive, but it should still be quite feasible to have reasonably long-distance high speed links using yagis or dishes.

    • Too bad there aren't any 10Mbs+ *low cost* hardware for let's say 5,000M radius

      So you want a cheap, 10Mbps+, 5000M range networking system?

      Pick any two.

  • 802.11g (Score:5, Informative)

    by r ( 13067 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:09PM (#4990231)
    btw, for those who haven't heard of 802.11g - it's a new standard for higher-speed transmission in the same 2.4GHz band. it promises 20+ Mbps (maybe even up to ~54Mbps), in contrast to the 11 Mbps of 802.11b.

    it's interesting, though, that the standard is still in the draft stage, scheduled for ratification in mid-2003, and hardware manufacturers are already rolling out implementations. not surprising, given market conditions, but let's hope that any changes will be minor, and fixable in firmware. :)

    see the P802.11 status report [ieee.org] at IEEE for more details...

    • Re:802.11g (Score:3, Informative)

      by gmacek ( 56790 )
      Here's a bit from Buffalo's page on the new AP and PC Card: (at bottom of page) Here [buffalotech.com]

      NOTE TO OUR CUSTOMERS: As you may know, IEEE802.11g is slated to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance in mid 2003. We understand this could affect current 802.11g technology. We are dedicated to ensuring that our customers have the most current and reliable products available on the market today. If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support. We thank you for your loyalty and confidence in our products.

      So in case anything changes they're guaranteeing you'll have what works. That's pretty cool if you ask me. I've worked with these guys before and have purchased a number of AP's and cards and they work well. People are nice to work with too.

  • price (Score:1, Informative)

    by pummer ( 637413 )
    For the price, I'll stick with my D-Link, thanks

  • Bollock! There is no 802.11g (Score:3, Informative)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:12PM (#4990263) Homepage Journal
    802.11g is not a standard. The standard is not yet written. It is in a draft form. At the most recent 802.11 meeting it was in comment resolution and the text was being changed in significant ways.

    Claiming compliance to 802.11g at this date is to lie.

    PBCC or OFDM phy based equipment at 2.4Ghz is not at this time 802.11 anything. It is proprietary. Buy it and you are buying proprietary, non interoperal stuff. Kids, just say 'no'.
    • Very true. It claims complaince just to the draft standard and on their website promises free replacement if necessary to meet IEEE 802.11g when it is finalized. I still wouldn't buy it b/c you'll probably have to send it back, but in the end you will end up with 802.11g compliant stuff.
    • From what I read on the linked sites, the company selling the hardware will replace anything sold now that doesnt meet the 802.11g standards when they are made (mid 2003?), with something that does.

      This is done so the people who need the bleeding edge of wireless networking don't have to wait, and their investment doesn't go down the drain when an official standard is made.

    • Re:Bollock! There is no 802.11g (Score:5, Informative)

      by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:32PM (#4990386)
      802.11g is not a standard. The standard is not yet written. It is in a draft form. At the most recent 802.11 meeting it was in comment resolution and the text was being changed in significant ways.

      Claiming compliance to 802.11g at this date is to lie.

      All true, but note that Buffalo do not claim this. From the website linked in the submission:

      "54g delivers the fastest possible data rate defined by the proposed IEEE802.11g draft specification"

      and

      " As you may know, IEEE802.11g is slated to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance in mid 2003. We understand this could affect current 802.11g technology. We are dedicated to ensuring that our customers have the most current and reliable products available on the market today. If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support."

      So not only do Buffalo plainly state that this technology based on the draft standard, but they also offer free replacement or upgrade once the standard is ratified. Sounds like a pretty good way to deal with this. Doesn't at all sound like:

      It is proprietary. Buy it and you are buying proprietary, non interoperal stuff. Kids, just say 'no'.

      Try reading the links before getting on your high horse.
    • This isn't the first time companies have come out with hardware to fill a demand while the standard was being fought over. (V.34 and V.90 come to mind specifically.) Companies put out the early releases because people wanted them - then, when the standard finalized, a firmware upgrade brought everyone up-to-date.


      I hardly think that somebody releasing product (with promise of upgrades - go check their website, they state that 'If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support.') based on a not-quite-finalized standard deserves to be called 'proprietary, non interoperal' and similar bad words.

  • Can someone give me a crash course on the differences between 802.11a, 802.11b and this 802.11g (other than the theoretical top speeds). I've seen plenty of stuff about 802.11b, and now this story on 802.11g, but 802.11a seems to be largely ignored.

    • Crash Course, Comin' Up! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Akardam ( 186995 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:27PM (#4990355)
      • 802.11b: The first widely available wireless networking spec. Up to 11Mbps at 2.4GHz. Widely adopted by people who really wanted wireless NOW.
      • 802.11a: The second available wireless spec. Up to 54Mbps at 5GHz. This had the advantage of placing the transmissions in a less populated band. However, most people who wanted wireless networking already had 802.11b equipment, and didn't feel that the faster speed was really worth it, hence the slower adoption.
      • 802.11g: Basically, faster 802.11b. Up to 54Mbps at 2.4GHz. This has the advantage of running in the same frequency range. I believe that 802.11g equipment may interoperate with 802.11b, but I'm not sure. I also believe that 2.4GHz wireless has a bit of a distance advantage over 5GHz, but don't quote me on that.

      Hope this helps.
      • The only thing you screwed up was the first line. 802.11b was certainly not the first, and very likely not the widest adopted.

        It just happened to be the first, standard, high-speed, affordable, wireless protocol, for computers. Now that is a lot of exceptions, but take away just about any of them, and you will discover that something else fullfilled that niche before 802.11b.

        <SARCAMS>
        I suppose Linux was the first open source operating system too.
        </SARCAMS>

    • Re:802.11a? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Gaewyn L Knight ( 16566 )
      802.11b is what most equipment uses now... it uses the 2.4ghz spectrum and maxes at 11mb/s
      802.11a uses 5.8ghz spectrum (less range but not as much interference) and runs at 22mb/s or 54mb/s depending on manufacturer.
      802.11g is an "upgrade" to 802.11b that is backwards compatible in the 2.4ghz spectrum but also runs speed up to 22mb/s or 54mb/s

      802.11g is still a working draft (not a standard) however enough of the standard has been fleshed out that flash upgrades for devices should bring them easily into compliance when/if any changes are announced to the end standard. This is also getting so much press because since it is 100% backwards compatible with 802.11b you only change your access point and you can start attaching higher speed devices. 802.11a you have to change all your clients or have 2 access points going (or linksys's dual 802.11a/802.11b access point)

      802.11a is largely being ignored because so far few manufacturers have outdoor/longhaul equipment for it. Most emphasis on this standard has been on access points for internal networks. Until companies put out equipment that can take better antennas the range is stodgy (and in 5.8ghz the range is still less even with those antennas)
      • >This is also getting so much press because since it is 100% backwards compatible with 802.11b

        Except for 802.11g BSSes with short slot time screwing up 802.11b overlapping BSSes.

    • Re:802.11a? (Score:3, Informative)

      by div_2n ( 525075 )
      802.11b and 802.11g operate in the 2.4 Ghz band. The 2.4 range offers three non-overlapping channels. 2.4 Ghz is the natural resonance frequency of water (i.e. microwave ovens).

      802.11a operates on the 5.3 Ghz range. It offers eight non-overlapping channels.

      You don't hear much about 802.11a because it is newer and has less market penetration than 802.11b. It hasn't had time to come into its own yet.

      You should probably expect to hear more about it as the 2.4 range gets really saturated.
      • You don't hear much about 802.11a because it is newer and has less market penetration than 802.11b. It hasn't had time to come into its own yet.

        I doubt it ever will.

        First, it costs significantly more. 802.11b is *cheap*.

        Second, there's a big installed 802.11b base. The WAPs aren't that big of a deal -- it costs something to yank it out, but it's not that bad. However, trying to convince every person entering your network or visiting to obtain an 802.11a card is non-trivial.

  • Security mathers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alexandre ( 53 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:14PM (#4990277) Journal
    Does this 802.11g standard fix the security issue we had with 802.11b ? If not, which 802.11* will fix that? :)
    • TGi deals with security. So that would be 802.11i.
      In the interim there is WPA. WPA is not an 802.11 thing, it is a WECA spec. It is poor mans security, better than WEP but worse than 802.11i.

      • and are the 802.11* standard independant of each other or are they all a complete solution to the wireless problem? (i mean, is 802.11i an add-on to other 802.11(a | b | g) standard?) and when is that going to be available? :-)
        • They [e,f,g,h,i] will all get rolled up into one big honking spec called 802.11-200[3|4|5|6] or whenever. The mismatches between the text of the individual specs get cleaned up at this point. That will be the spec.

          The last big honking rolled up spec was 1999. That incorporated 802.11b for 11mbps at 2.4Ghz

          The approved individual drafts will get approved by the working group, then approved at sponsor ballot and then they will sit around waiting to be incorporated into a unified spec. The approved drafts that have been through sponsor ballot are OK to implement to, in that they will not change.

  • Buffalo Gear is Ok... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Radix42 ( 455239 ) <Radix42@cox.net> on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:16PM (#4990294)
    ...although the manuals are VERY badly translated from Chinese. Had no trouble with a Buffalo AP with various Windows flavors, Mac OS 9 and X, and Linux/BSD releases...but their Windows config program for their 802.11b Card was very icky (it was much easier to get working under Linux, IIRC it was a standard Lucent chipset :-)

    Anyway, 2 years ago their gear was the cheapest 802.11b I found, and worked fine (Windows users deserve their pain, no?)
  • Did they fix the serious security problems (weak keys) with 802.11b in 802.11g, or do I still need kludgy workarounds in software?

    • Re:Is it reasonably secure now? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mrneutron ( 61365 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:44PM (#4990436)
      Weak keys were addressed by 'WEP+', an 802.11b firmware upgrade which negates the weak inititialization vector attack. WEP+ is now available from most vendors.

      Many 802.11b APs also allow separate xmit and recv keys, making WEP attacks much more difficult.

      Then disable SSID broadcasts (making your 802.11b wireless network invisible to tools like netstumbler).

      WEP certainly has its weaknesses (especially when 802.11b was first released), but is arguably 'reasonably secure' today. It's far from perfect, but is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

      • Re:Is it reasonably secure now? (Score:4, Informative)

        by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:56PM (#4990482) Homepage Journal
        >It's far from perfect, but is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

        Oh yes it is.
        WEP+ is not a standard. Different vendors have different means of avoiding (or not) weak keys.

        Problem 1: Weak key avoidance just makes the IV space get exhausted quicker.

        Problem 2: There are likely to be new classes of weak keys discovered that invalidate the weak key skipping mechanisms and further shink the IV space.

        Problem 3: If you have no weak keys, then IV space exhaustion gets you in the end.

        Problem 4: To solve IV space exhaustion within the current WEP structure, you need rapid rekeying. There is no rapid rekeying spec. 802.1X is used be vendors in the wild, but only in proprietary ways, since as a standard it doesn't work over a non secured channel like 802.11.

        Problem 5: 802.1X has some fundamental layer violation problems with networks that don't have an ethertype (like 802.11). Ethernet is fine. It has an ethertype.

        • Could you detail a real-world attack that would break the security of the network I described above? Also, how long this real-world attack would take to complete?

          In my tests, Airsnort, etc., were painfully slow on normal WEP networks, nevermind WEP+ (point taken that it's not standard) with dual keys.

          I'm not arguing with your points: 'reasonable security' is highly subjective (a home user and a bank would have different answers). I'd like to know what specific steps someone would need to take to break into a network as I described today.
      • Well, thanks, but that doesn't quite answer the question. If I buy an 802.11g network, do I still have to worry about all this stuff?
  • ... preferably one that will fit into my TiG4 and combine 802.11b/(a|g) and Bluetooth.

    Perhaps that upgrade will be available when it's included in the next TiG4 (groundless rumor)?
  • Security includes:
    Intrusion Detector, 128/64bit WEP, password, MAC Address Registration, Privacy Separator, Dynamic Packet Filtering

    I am suprised they don't have built in VPN support or additional encryption to the router like OpenAP (See http://opensource.instant802.com/)

    Until this happens using a wireless network is not safe.
    • I thought security included confidentiality, authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. 802.11 currently has none of these in any effective form. The future 802.11i draft is not likely to give you non-repudiation, sorry.

  • And in other news.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:39PM (#4990419)
    ..Wireless Access Points will now instead be referred to as G-spots.

  • Range with 802.11b (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dalutong ( 260603 ) <djtansey@gmail.cCOFFEEom minus caffeine> on Tuesday December 31, 2002 @03:39PM (#4990420)
    They have a chart on the product's webpage, but does the 11Mps (indoor is 410ft) range apply to 802.11b devices? and does the outdoor (1800ft) apply to 802.11b devices?

    If it does, I may just get one of these things. The range in my WAP/router (linksys) sucks. then again -- i would buy a booster if i could find one that works well.

  • Posted at Broadband reports (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Uh....This was posted on Broadband Reports yesterday....guy ripped the intro and links directly....

    http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/24808
  • ... NX-802.11

    It can only do 5 megabits, but'll we be free from broadcast flags!

    (Okay, that Enterprise joke might be a little too obscure. I've had too much coffee.)
  • If like me you found yourself asking "what the heck is 802.11g?", this site [smallbusin...puting.com] was pretty helpful.
  • I was the original poster. Sorry, it completly slipped my mind. I knew where I got it from, but somewhere in between pasting from dslreports.com I forgot to credit them. They deserve it.
  • http://www.timhiggins.com/Reviews-33-ProdID-WBRG54 -1.php
  • None of these companies have figured out how to make good 802.11b equipment, it will be a cold day in hell before I purchase fresh of the shelf g equipment.
  • "Update: 12/31 22:50 GMT by T: Karen Sohl of Linksys writes to say that despite the slip in dates, "Linksys is shipping our line of Wireless-G products. We have been shipping since last week. Honestly not large volume by any means-- but by the end of this week we'll have shipped over 10,000 units to distribution -- Ingram Micro and Tech Data." That's where even large retailers (think Amazon) buy their stock."

    Having worked for some years in computer reselling, I have dealt with Ingram Micro from time to time. I must say that they are not to be trusted. More than one time we received something from them where it was supposed to be brand new but it had clearly been shipped back and forth from repair shops, as shown by the stickers on the packaging. Don't trust them unless losing your business would mean a significant ($millions) loss in business for them.

    • Re:ingram micro (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wolf- ( 54587 )
      I will not only second the afore mentioned opinion, but add that Ingram Micro recently told all its small business customers to go screw themselves, that they were cutting off all their lines of credit.

      Was it for bad credit reviews? Was it for late payments? No, it was because you were small, insignificant in their minds. Let me see, buy overpriced, backordered kit form Ingram and pay cash now, or get it on credit from another supplier? Hrm, thanks for your support Ingram. It was the small shops that MADE Ingram Micro, so f*ck them.

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