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Technical News & Discussion => Windows News & Discussion => Topic started by: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 07:58:45

Title: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 07:58:45
http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/08/10/12/1724230.shtml

decent info here, not that slashdot's isn't....... cough

http://pyrit.wordpress.com/the-twilight-of-wi-fi-protected-access/
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 09:59:08
I always did prefer cables, So. :)
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 10:14:04
wireless signals have caused my brain to forget what a cable actually is  ;D
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Gary on Oct 13, 2008, 10:14:13
Quote from: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 09:59:08
I always did prefer cables, So. :)
So do I Rik, but I'm not to worried about this living out here in the sticks
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 10:16:40
TBH, I don't think many people need to worry - just keep an eye on the router.
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Gary on Oct 13, 2008, 10:20:48
Quote from: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 10:16:40
TBH, I don't think many people need to worry - just keep an eye on the router.
I dont know anyone round here with cuda Nvidia GPU's Rik apart from me  >:D
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 10:26:27
The thing is kill shortly this won't be limited to people with the hardware listed. Online services already exist which will crack md5, sha1 etc. Websites will be pooping up soon that do the same for wpa, just stick in the hash and away you go....
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Gary on Oct 13, 2008, 10:34:05
Quote from: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 10:26:27
The thing is kill shortly this won't be limited to people with the hardware listed. Online services already exist which will crack md5, sha1 etc. Websites will be pooping up soon that do the same for wpa, just stick in the hash and away you go....
True So, but my main machine is wired our laptops and pda's are never used for online banking and as the population of our village is about 300 with an average age of 8000 ;) I'm not to worried yet, nothing is ever safe, we know mobile phone texts can be read etc so why did we think WPA2 with AES would be safe forever :( what does scare me is the number of BT hubs around here with WEP only, people really do not know what they are using
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 10:51:01
Don't really think it's worth worrying about either ;) Still it's progressing towards the start to worry stage...
The home hubs are not good at all. At least sky use wpa but even then they have done a bad job of that. Especially with the default 8 character alpha numeric uppercase keys.
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Gary on Oct 13, 2008, 11:00:28
Quote from: somanyholes on Oct 13, 2008, 10:51:01
Don't really think it's worth worrying about either ;) Still it's progressing towards the start to worry stage...
The home hubs are not good at all. At least sky use wpa but even then they have done a bad job of that. Especially with the default 8 character alpha numeric uppercase keys.
I always use my own routers So, with 63 bit ASCII characters and WPA2 AES encryption
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: JB on Oct 13, 2008, 17:10:29
For the needs of most IDNetters, the access point or router usually had a means of only allowing designated MAC addresses of wireless cards to connect.

For the time being using MAC filtering and WAP should be enough for us home users to feel fairly safe, no?

BTW, I live in the sticks too.
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 17:28:40
I think that, for most people, WPA will remain adequate for the time being, JB. MAC filtering is easily overcome, but in practice, people are not generally going to try and hack protected networks to gain a free connection.
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: JB on Oct 13, 2008, 17:31:17
Quote from: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 17:28:40
MAC filtering is easily overcome

Wow. Didn't know that Rik.

Ta!
Title: Re: wpa heads nearer to the cliff
Post by: Rik on Oct 13, 2008, 17:33:59
Anyone with enough knowledge to hack WPA would also be able to spoof a valid MAC address, JB. It would deter a casual bandwidth 'thief', but not anyone who was prepared to invest the time in cracking the WPA key. Luckily, for most of us, the risk is pretty small.