Re: ALERT: WPA can be less secure than WEP

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 14:27:26 GMT, rico_001@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rico) wrote:

>I can see the help desk at Linksys now...

Are you in India?

>My point is the support desks at
>Linksys would be drowning in calls if they encrypted before they shipped.

Really? PacHell/SBC/AT&T/Whatever have been shipping 2WIRE wireless
routers (er.. Home Portals) for several years without much difficulty.
The default password, SSID, and WEP/WPA key are inscribed on a label
stuck on the bottom of the machine. They also supply a Windoze setup
and monitor program to help with the PPPoE login and password loading.
It also can easily be done with a web browser. I've done a few of
these. Once I found the label, everything was obvious.

Drivel: The most challenging part of setting up a router is selecting
a suitable password and WEP/WPA key. I've had customers literally
agonize for a considerable number of minutes trying to select a
suitable password. If they're setting up an account at the same time,
the user name selection is equally difficult. I see pre-selection of
the default passwords to be generally beneficial because it saves the
customer the agony of being forced to think.

>First thing I do when encountering a friend that needs help is turn off all
>security, get things working then start applying. I suspect you take a
>similar approach when asked by you non-techie friends to help them out.

Not really. I wish I had a consistent approach to wireless
troubleshooting. Most of what I find are problems on the client side.
I drag in my known working laptop. If that plays, I concentrate on
removing junkware and viruses, configuring overly complex personal
firewalls, and generally clean house. I rarely have to tinker with
the router except to configure port forwarding and triggering.

>Again not saying you are worng because you aren't, but I do understand why
>the makers don't do this.

Oh, I understand exactly why they don't do it. However, it has
nothing to do with the users ease of setup or support problem. It has
to do with what the competition is doing. None of the biggies (DLink,
Linksys, Netgear, Belkin) want to do anything that is deemed to be
fundamentally "different". There's too much risk is being labelled an
oddity. 2wire can do it correctly because they only sell to big ISP's
who can deal with the support issues. However, if only one
manufacturer did it right, I can assure you that these vendors would
instantly demand something similar from their far east product
suppliers.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
.

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