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Wireless Networking Hardware IT

802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved by Working Group 105

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the stamp-of-approval dept.
[Geeks Are Sexy] writes "Yes folks, the 802.11 Working Group has finally approved Draft 2.0 of the 802.11n spec, bringing us a step closer to its final form. 'With the positive vote from the 802.11n Working Group, the Wi-Fi Alliance will now begin officially certifying equipment as being compliant with Draft 2.0. That's an important step, as official Draft 2.0-compliant gear is guaranteed to be fully compatible with the final 802.11n standard.'"
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802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved by Working Group More

802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved by Working Group

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  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ISO seems to be more efficient at ramrodding through standards we don't want (OOXML) rather than getting out the ones we are desperately waiting for. :p
    • ISO seems to be more efficient at ramrodding through standards we don't want (OOXML) rather than getting out the ones we are desperately waiting for. :p

      I think their speed is clearly proportional to the amount of grease that's applied to the inner workings of the system....

  • About f***ing time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @02:59PM (#18353029)
    It will take a couple of months at least for certified equipment to appear. Having participated in a couple of the working group meetings, I can say that (unfortunately) one of the unsaid goals for any of the participating companies was to make sure that none of their competitor's proposals go through as is. The rationale being that the competitor would have a chip design almost ready to go with that technique and will be faster to hit the market and grab market share...

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by mastershake_phd ( 1050150 )
      It will take a couple of months at least for certified equipment to appear.

      For Draft Certified equipment to appear? Isn't that kind of an oxymoron?
    • This is another great example of capitalism gone too far... companies act solely with their own interest in mind. And I used to think being selfish was a bad thing...

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by evilviper ( 135110 )

      It will take a couple of months at least for certified equipment to appear.

      It might take a couple months for the packaging and documentation to be updated. If you can't wait, looking at each vendor's websites for firmware updates and attached notes should quickly tell you which currently available gear is going to be 100% compatible, and full-speed with (future) certified 802.11n gear.

  • I see that this released draft seems to focus on speed increases, and not enough at all on security. Why is it that the industry is focused on such unimportant aspects of the technology.

    With this speed increase, we will see even MORE packets per second on these networks, which only makes cracking of WEP, WPA, and LEAP that much faster now that the cryptographic sample set increases.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by EvanED ( 569694 )
      The people who work on these separate things are two different groups of people probably. The ones you want working on crypto stuff are your theoretical comp sci people and mathematicians. The ones you want working on the next 802.11 standard are your electrical engineers. It's not like one group is really diverting resources from the other.

      There are ways to reasonably secure your network, so people who know and care will still be able to take advantage of n when it's finalized.

      (This is over-simplified of c

    • Re:They need to prioritize (Score:5, Informative)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @03:19PM (#18353429)
      >MORE packets per second on these networks,

      That makes no sense. WPA (using TKIP) changes keys every x packets, not x seconds. Usually under 10,000. WPA using AES/CCMP is even more difficult (if not impossible) to crack. WPA and WPA2 are just fine for wireless networks at 108mpbs. Hell, I'd be happy just to see people migrate away from WEP with this new release of products.

      The real vulnerability is still weak passwords. Wireless devices could do more to enforce better passwords and limit the amount of tries per minute per mac.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by FLEB ( 312391 )
        limit the amount of tries per minute per mac.

        I'd imagine if someone were trying to crack a WiFi device, they'd probably set their system up to change MACs on a regular schedule as well. Then again, I'd probably be surprised, and it's a simple bit more protection.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by soleblaze ( 628864 )
        Doesn't matter about limiting the tries per mac. A majority of tools designed to crack WPA are done via offline attacks. You sniff the 4 way auth handshake, and with that you can use an offline password cracker, such as cowpatty, against it. Cowpatty also supports hashes (rainbow table attack) and the church of wifi released hashes for 1000 of the most common ssids using a ~174k dictionary. (That's the major problem with using a hash attack, the SSID is used as salt with WPA). So in the end, it's just
  • Doesn't belkin have some 802.11 pre-N devices out there? Are owners of those devices doomed to a life of security via obscurity?

    Although i think that making wireless g implicitly (or giving the appearance of this) compatible with b was one of the greatest moves to allow for adoption of new tech. I know that the b/g compatibility is probably nearing speed and range limits (or ran right into them), but i'm also disappointed that you'll have to get combo compatibility with combo cards.
    • I bought a belkin pre-n router and card on sale for 30 bucks. I knew going in that, essentialy, I was buying G gear, with a bit more range and speed if I happen to use the pre-N card.

      There's no reason a software upgrade shouldn't be able to take it to N, but I doubt I'll be offered one - why, when they can sell me a whole new kit?

      But, 30 bucks for a G router and pcmcia card wasn't too shabby, so I'm not upset about it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by TechnicalFool ( 719087 )
      I've got a Pre-N router/card combo, and It's not "basically G". The "Basically G" router I used to have, would be hard pushed to give me a signal at the bottom of the garden. It also had a major problem with DECT phones, and if anyone decided to use the microwave oven, I could kiss goodbye to any data transfer during cooking. Now I'm blackspot-free, there's a clear signal all the way to a friend's house three doors up across the street, through his house into the fields beyond, and my signal is about as lik

  • N already? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @03:17PM (#18353389) Homepage Journal
    We're more than halfway through the alphabet already. How long until we run out of letters, and have to designate our wireless standards by shapes, colors, or other designations?

    "Guess what! My network is now running exclusively on 802.11blue-dodecahedron-with-lemon-scent-and-sandp apery-texture!"
    • We start using chinese characters then.

      There are thousands of those after all. ...
      What? You don't want to learn a logographic writing system just to refer to wireless standards? Tough luck. 1.3 billion people "can't" be wrong!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MindStalker ( 22827 )
      well we could just change the 802.11 part to something else. No biggie. BTW h,i,j,k,l,m were all used at SOME point. Some more than others.

      (Don't remember all of them myself I know i was an improved encryption scheme, j was japanesse support k was extra node hopping, etc.. all or most of which is going into n)
    • The Universal Character Set [wikipedia.org] has, as of Unicode 5.0, some 98,000+ graphemes, so I think we'll be good for a little while.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 )
      After z comes aa, ab, etc. 802.3 (Ethernet) is up to ay already.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Nermal6693 ( 622898 )
      We'll just have to start using LETTERv6 instead of v4. However, it'll take several years to catch on.

  • for the cheapskates (Score:3)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @03:18PM (#18353399) Homepage
    Once official N gear starts hitting store shelves in full force, the G stuff is going to go "free after rebate" to clear the shelves.

    Then we will see people buying trunk-fulls of G access points, and distributing grids of the free access points all over their property, providing greater coverage and more (net) bandwidth for the cost of $0 + time.
  • more important than increased speed is the touted additional distance....
  • which was an attempt to force us to not be able to get "free" wireless, I'm all in favor of 200 GB/s.

    But, an important question, will this interfere with my ability to listen to CIA broadcasts on my fillings?
    • Quit trolling; WiMAX can't magically make 802.11 stop working, nor can it convince all the 802.11 hardware vendors to stop making 802.11 hardware.
  • ...will it include priority packet support for Duke Nukem Forever?
  • So now I have to go out and purposefully by devices for my computer that are N-compatible or N-capable but, only if I want them to work properly.

    Does anyone see the irony here?

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