CWNP Blog

CWNP
November 01, 2010

WPA with TKIP: No Fast Secure Roaming

In my previous post , I explained a few details about 802.11 preauthentication. There was a great comment after that blog asking/stating how preauthentication works with WPA. It went like this: “Wouldn’t pre-authentication only be valid for an 802.11i (WPA2) RSN network since the 802.11-2007 standard specifically states the pre-authentication capability is advertised in the RSN IE? This would mean that Wi-Fi Alliance pre-standard WPA would not be able to use this feature since it uses the WPA IE, not the RSN IE.” -- Andrew

CWNP
October 22, 2010

Preauthentication and the Common Misunderstanding

Preauthentication is a seemingly duplicitous SOB of a protocol. Since I’ve had this same conversation at least 3 times in the last few weeks, it seemed a good time to extract the truth. You ready? Get your SCUBA (did you know that SCUBA is an acronym?) gear cause we’re going deep.

CWNP
October 18, 2010

Biker shorts, M&Ms, and BigDogs

I spent the end of last week (6th-8th, that is) at Ruckus’ BigDogs partner and customer conference in Atlanta, and I have two words to describe it: fun and irreverent. In fact, I met David Callisch (VP, Marketing) at the reception on Wednesday night and that was the word he used to describe the event: irreverent. I’ll keep this blog short, but I do want to mention a few things about the conference and the company that hosted it.

CWNP
October 14, 2010

802.11 Alphabet Soup

Have you ever tried to recite all 802.11 amendments from 802.11-1997 to today's working drafts? Ever wonder what happened to the lost letters of the 802.11 spec like 802.11o? Let’s review, shall we?

CWNP
September 27, 2010

“Will Controllers Go Away?” and Other Industry Questions

I’d like to pose a question and then some more questions. Many of you started reading the CWNP blog back when the Devinator started writing it a few years back. He and I are still good friends, and I often look back on his decision to jump into the vendor-specific game from a critical vendor-neutral perspective. By “critical” I don’t mean that I am criticizing him for making that decision, but rather I’m talking about using critical reasoning to deconstruct the merits of his choice to go to Aerohive (making the assumption that he could have jockeyed for a position at any vendor for any predominant reason). Like many of you, I have a vested interest in the momentum of the Wi-Fi industry as a whole, the changes in technology, vendor positioning and market share, and the like. Thus, since I know he’s ok with it, I’d like to hear your opinions about his decision to put his flag in the sand with a controller-less architecture.

CWNP
September 23, 2010

VeriWave’s WaveDeploy: An Introduction and Review

If you’ve been keeping up with recent industry news, vendor tests, and analyst articles, you may have noticed the seemingly ubiquitous presence of VeriWave. If you don’t know them already, VeriWave specializes in WLAN product testing and network validation tools/suites, and after looking through their product line, it won’t surprise you that many vendors depend on them for WLAN product assurance and competitive testing. Take a look around at some of their recent mentions.

CWNP
September 09, 2010

Distributing 802.1X Settings to your Clients

Businesses and organizations should use Enterprise-level Wi-Fi Protected Access—preferably WPA2 with AES encryption—to secure their WLAN, which requires the use of a RADIUS server for the 802.1X authentication. However, you'll probably find that configuring the end-users is a road-block, or at least a big speed bump, to your 802.1X implementation. As the owner of a hosted 802.1X service, I see this problem daily. In Windows you can't simply just connect to these types of networks—you must preconfigure the 802.1X settings. You'll likely see an increase in trouble calls and visits to the help desk.

CWNP
August 24, 2010

Factors to Consider while Evaluating a Wireless Security Solution

Wi-Fi proliferation and increased awareness about associated security risks is prompting many organizations to install Wi-Fi security monitoring systems, for which the industry term is WIPS (wireless intrusion prevention system). Protection from rogue APs, WiPhishing, corporate client connections to neighborhood APs, mis-configurations of authorized Wi-Fi, wireless DoS attacks, spoofing, and zero-day attacks are some of the commonly cited reasons to install WIPS. There are many WIPS solutions available in the market today, including those offered by WLAN infrastructure vendors and those offered by dedicated security vendors. However, WIPS being a relatively new security technology, organizations often face challenges in evaluating these solutions to determine what best suits them. More so, many end-users may not have the level of dedicated wireless skills and resources required to thoroughly test a WIPS. In this light, this article lays out some high level considerations that are important while evaluating a WIPS solution.

CWNP
August 11, 2010

Meraki's New Features: A 1-2-3 Punch

Vendors contact me on a regular basis to let me know about their new products, features, and developments. I like that. Generally, the hope is that I’ll write about them, but a fair amount of the time, there’s not much worth writing about. I got an email the other day from Meraki and for no apparent reason, I suspected they were writing to tell me about some paltry feature upgrade that neither I, nor CWNP’s constituents would care about. That has nothing to do with Meraki, and was more about my mood at the time (I’m seeing a counselor about that). :) I’ve had nothing but great experiences interacting with Merakians thus far so I had no reason to expect the worse. So, in addition to being anecdotal and transparent, I share that information only to reinforce the fact that I was pleasantly surprised by the 1-2-3 punch of news Meraki released this morning.

CWNP
August 04, 2010

Free Wi-Fi Stumbling and Surveying Tools

You’ve most likely heard of NetStumbler, but there are many more free Wi-Fi stumblers out there. These can come in handy whether you want to check the channels, find rogue APs, or do full RF site surveys. Here’s a review on several of these stumbling and surveying utilities.

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