Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 16:08:36 -0700 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Brad Karp <karp@eecs.harvard.edu> Cc: raj@cisco.com, freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org, wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu Subject: Re: wi driver and WaveLAN IEEE 802.11 Turbo cards Message-ID: <199905272308.QAA02744@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 27 May 1999 19:05:18 EDT." <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.
The old Wavelan cards also ignore the NWID in promiscuous mode.
> 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).
The WEP mode is achieved by plugging in the "DES chip" on the older
cards. All traffic is encrypted using a shared secret; you can only
communicate with other cards that are using the same secret.
> 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.
They were claimed to encrypt in ad-hoc mode, yes.
--
\\ The mind's the standard \\ Mike Smith
\\ of the man. \\ msmith@freebsd.org
\\ -- Joseph Merrick \\ msmith@cdrom.com
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