Re: [SAGE] Apple Airport base station admin SW for Wintel

[Cat Okita <cat@reptiles.org>]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Chuck Yerkes wrote:
> Quoting Cat Okita (cat@reptiles.org):
> > On 25 Jan 2002, Darrell Fuhriman wrote:
> > > Of course, these days that doesn't matter.  WEP is so thoroughly
> > > broken that the length of the key is irrelevant.
> > >
> > > http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/isaac/wep-faq.html
> >
> > Well, yes - but I'd still rather protect myself against the casual
> > passer by...
> Then the cheaper cards will meet your need.  It's the difference
> between encoding with ROT13 or uuencode.

I think you missed my point entirely, which was simply that the early
airports used lucent silver cards, which only provide 64 bit keys. The
later ones use lucent gold cards, which provide 128 bit keys.

Yes, WEP is close to useless - but close to useless, and useless aren't
the same thing.

While there's very little statistical difference in the cracking speed
between 64bit and 128bit keys, with weak keys, there's a lot of difference
when you can avoid weak keys (and modifications to attempt to protect
against this vulnerability are taking place
http://www.wavelan.com/template.html?section=m52&envelope=90&page=3267)

> WEP is close to useless, whether 64 or 128 or 1024 bit.
> IPSEC from the laptop to the target is acceptable.

Yes - in fact I'm sure you missed my point. I'm definately not claiming
that WEP isn't problematic, or that you should use _only_ WEP. I'm
suggesting that you should use as much (or as little) data security as
you're comfortable with.

I could ask whether your laptop is secure - and whether the target is
secure - but I'd prefer to assume that you're sufficiently competent to
have ensured both.

cheers!
==========================================================================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet.  This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."