Re: [tlug] Linux Wireless Networking

[Jake Morrison <jake_morrison@example.com>]

--- Jonathan Q <jq@example.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 03, 2003 at 12:02:15AM +0900, Charles Muller wrote:
> 
> > wonder if there are any sticking points I should keep in mind
> > regarding doing this on Linux (RH 8 & 9)?
> 
> Wireless networking (talking 802.11b) here has a few sticking
> points of its own:
> 
> 1) Speed.  11 mbps is not terribly fast.  Connecting your
> laptop and desktop together with a crossover cable and
> a couple of cheap 10/100 NICs will get you 100 mbps 
> (or use a cheap 10/100 switch and two straight cables instead,
> but a rollover is cheaper if you have only two machines) at
> a far lower cost;

I am waiting on the 802.11g stuff to get supported by Linux.
Seems like they are not releasing specs to the hardware....

> 
> 2) Security.  The joke about WEP is that it really stands for
> "Wiretap Equivalence Please" since it was never terribly
> secure anyway, and was completely broken about
> two years ago.  If a cracker is sniffing your WEP packets, your
> network will be cracked.  How long it takes is a matter of how
> busy your network is, but it will be cracked.  If you want the
> things you send over your wireless network to be secure, 
> run it all over an SSH tunnel or IPSEC tunnel.  That still
> doesn't mean your WEP keys can't be cracked, but it means that
> if they are, your data is still worthless to the cracker b/c
> it's all using strong crypto.
> 
> Don't know offhand if any wireless access points support
> MAC address controls or not, but if they do, I strongly
> implement buying one that does, as an additional means of
> keeping strangers off your network.

They do, generally. 

> 
> Jonathan

Jake