Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 19:05:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Brad Karp <karp@eecs.harvard.edu> To: raj@cisco.com Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org, wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu Subject: Re: wi driver and WaveLAN IEEE 802.11 Turbo cards Message-ID: <199905272305.TAA10446@dominator.eecs.harvard.edu>
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Setting the network number with old WaveLAN cards wasn't really a form
of "security," of course, since a user could listen on successive network
IDs and easily determine which was in use. There was no encryption of any
kind, nor authentication.
There exist Lucent IEEE 802.11 WaveLAN "WEP" ("Wired-Equivalent Privacy")
cards, which are said to use 40-bit encryption on packets over the air.
I've neither seen nor used such a card, and haven't seen details of the
scheme. I would *guess* that the encryption is shared-secret symmetric,
and that each user must configure the card with the 40-bit key to use.
That is, I would guess that the system makes no attempt to deal with
key management. And the WavePoint-II, even with WEP, won't do anything to
authenticate a node (though the node will need the right 40-bit key to
communicate usefully, perhaps).
I've no idea if the WEP cards will encrypt in ad-hoc mode. I see no
fundamental technical reason why they couldn't, if my assumption about
no key management, under which each host has to configure the card with the key
individually, is correct.
Whether 40-bit keys protect anything credibly is another matter. :-)
-Brad, karp@eecs.harvard.edu
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