Devicescape takes on Wi-Fi guest access problem
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(InfoWorld) - A maker of software that simplifies getting onto public Wi-Fi hotspots is now tackling the complexity of using the network in your own home or at a friend's house. Consumers have been warned not to leave their home wireless LANs (WLANs) open, and security mechanisms have become both stronger and in some cases easier to set up. But to let a visiting friend use the Internet, users typically have had to reconfigure the network or enter an SSID (Service Set Identifier) and a lengthy password. For consumers who have trouble setting up a network in the first place, this can be a high barrier. Devicescape SoftwareÂ offers free beta-test software that can store user sign-on information for many public hotspots and is working to get it built into devices such as Wi-Fi cameras that lack a browser or keyboard. On Tuesday, it expanded that tool to include home WLANs, with a system called Wi-Fi Buddies. Consumers can sign up for Wi-Fi Buddies, have their SSID and password stored on the company's server, and invite their friends to download the Devicescape software and get sign-on credentials for their WLAN. Once a friend gets those credentials from Devicescape, they can start using the home WLAN without signing in or even going past a splash screen, according to the company. The WLAN owner never gives the SSID and password to a user, so it's possible to lock people out later through Devicescape's Web site without changing the password. Wi-Fi Buddies can also be used with an open home network. Devicescape isn't alone in trying to solve the problem. The Wi-Fi Alliance's WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) specification defines two methods of setting up WLANs without having to make up or enter an SSID or encryption password. Those techniques can also be used to get visitors onto the secure network, said Som Pal Choudhury, a product line manager at Netgear, which is adopting WPS for some products. However, WPS doesn't allow access to be granted and rescinded entirely online. Cisco Systems' Linksys division, the leading seller of home WLAN gear, recommends users either enter the SSID and password on a visitor's PC or put the device's MAC (Media Access Control) address into a filtering list on the access point, said spokeswoman Karen Sohl. Linksys doesn't use WPS now but hopes to adopt a later version. Initial WLAN setup is a typical headache for consumers, said Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, but how to let friends onto the LAN seems to be a less common problem, he said. "I think when friends come over, you have a beer," Dulaney said. Small businesses could also use Wi-Fi Buddies to grant temporary access to their networks, Devicescape says, but the company doesn't guarantee the security of the passwords it stores. Wi-Fi Buddies has been released for current Devicescape customers and will be publicly available at the company's Web site by Thursday. It runs on Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, and Mobile versions 5 and 6. The company is also working on an Apple OS X version. One thing that isn't on the horizon is Devicescape for the iPhone. The company continues to approach Apple about this but has nothing to report, said Bill McIntosh, Devicescape's vice president of marketing.
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Group seeks to make Web access for mobile device users as easy as it is for desktop users.
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The Earthlink-Google plan for free WiFi in San Francisco appears to be derailed -- for now.
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New software securely adds devices to wireless networks with the push of a button.
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Bows to OEM pressure to drop delayed soft AP feature
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Apple on Thursday released a Security and AirPort update for Mac OS X that fixes vulnerabilities found in the company&#8217;s wireless drivers. Apple said the issues found were the result of an internal audit of the software drivers and that no known exploits exist for the issues addressed in this update.
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With a rash of muni Wi-Fi projects collapsing, companies and cities realize their initial approaches to providing ubiquitous, free network connectivity aren't working. The problem is Wi-Fi is too expensive to deploy, and there's not enough user demand.
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It's the first time the company has officially said it would fight attempts to use the popular device on unauthorized networks.
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Newbury Networks&#39; wardrive found thousands of unsecured access points around Madison Square Garden, even though the GOP had declared its convention a Wi-Fi free zone.
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(InfoWorld) - The Wi-Fi connection on Apple's recently releasedÂ iPhoneÂ seems to be the source of a big headache for network administrators at Duke University. The built-in 802.11b/g adapters on several iPhones periodically flood sections of the Durham, N.C. school's pervasive wireless LAN with MAC address requests, temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time. Campus network staff are talking with Cisco, the main WLAN provider, and have opened a help desk ticket with Apple. But so far, the precise cause of the problem remains unknown. "Because of the time of year for us, it's not a severe problem," says Kevin Miller, assistant director, communications infrastructure, with Duke's Office of Information Technology. "But from late August through May, our wireless net is critical. My concern is how many students will be coming back in August with iPhones? It's a pretty big annoyance, right now, with 20-30 access points signaling they're down, and then coming back up a few minutes later. But in late August, this would be devastating." That's because the misbehaving iPhones flood the access points with up to 18,000 address requests per second, nearly 10Mbps of bandwidth, and monopolizing the AP's airtime. The access points show up as "out of service." For 10-15 minutes, there's no way to communicate with them, Miller says. "When the problem occurs, we see dozens of access points in that condition," Miller says. The network team began capturing wireless traffic for analysis and that's when they discovered that the offending devices were iPhones. Right now, Miller says, there are about 150 of the Apple devices registered on the campus WLAN. The requests are for what is, at least for Duke's network, an invalid router address. Devices use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to request the MAC address of the destination node, for which it already has the IP address. When it doesn't get an answer, the iPhone just keeps asking. "I'm not exactly sure where the 'bad' router address is coming from," Miller says. One possibility: each offending iPhone may have been first connected to a home wireless router or gateway, and it may automatically and repeatedly be trying to reconnect to it again when something happens to the iPhone's initial connection on the Duke WLAN. They're still sorting out what that "something" is. On two occasions, one last Friday and one today, Monday 16 July, both users seemed to be behaving completely normally, yet both iPhones started flooding the net with ARP requests. In both cases, the user first successfully connected to the WLAN at one location, and then moved to another building, where the ARP flood began. "It may have something to do with the iPhone losing connectivity and then trying to reconnect in a new location," Miller says. Most of the W LAN is comprised of Cisco thin access points and controllers. Some older autonomous Cisco Aironet access points tend to uncover the flooding first, since they try to resolve the ARP request themselves. But Miller's team has seen the CPU utilization on the WLAN controllers spiking as they try to process the request flood passed on to them in control traffic from the thin access points. "I don't believe it's a Cisco problem in any way, shape, or form," he says firmly. So far, the communication with Apple has been "one-way," Miller says, with the Duke team filing the problem ticket. He says Apple has told him the problem is being "escalated" but as of mid-afternoon Monday, nothing substantive had been heard Apple.
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Don't WEP for me Argentina Wireless networks almost trebled in London over the last 12 months with more, but not all organisations, realizing the importance of running secure networks.â¦
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Cell phone owners currently enjoy a kind of privacy through obscurity: Wireless numbers aren&#39;t listed with directory assistance.
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Blog: Research into WiFi service found the fastest of the free wins
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Punts 802.11a kit at gamers, multi-room music streamers
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Wireless security threats are overhyped and easily stopped. You have bigger things to worry about, says a Computerworld editor.
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Blog: It turns out Apple's new device wasn't the culprit for wireless network outages at Duke University, as reports alleged earlier this week.
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Overseas WLAN access at no extra charge - for now