Is wpa2 hardware, software or both

Hi All,

Is wpa2 hardware, software, or both? I know I
have to get an 802.11i/wpa2 access point, but do I
also need to replace older 802.11g mini-pci cards?

Many thanks,
--Tony

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 19:53:20 -0700, Tony <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Is wpa2 hardware, software, or both? I know I
>have to get an 802.11i/wpa2 access point, but do I
>also need to replace older 802.11g mini-pci cards?

The idea behind WPA v1 was to not have any modifications to the
hardware. It was suppose to be a firmware or software driver only
patch job.

WPA2 802.11i adds AES encryption is usually (not always) requires
hardware support. However, not all vendors do AES encryption in
hardware. Today, Microsoft released WPA2 support for XP SP2, all in
software. See:
| http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893357
| http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
It should work in any laptop, with any card, that uses Wireless Zero
Config and XP SP2. I haven't tried it yet.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

> hardware. Today, Microsoft released WPA2 support for XP SP2, all in
> software. See:
> | http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893357
> | http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
> It should work in any laptop, with any card, that uses Wireless Zero
> Config and XP SP2. I haven't tried it yet.

It's a shame that both MS and the OEM's don't put the same effort into
other mobile devices for without equal support on them, you still end up
with a totally fragmented solution and possibly still stuck without the
ability to upgrade.

E.g. Dell Axim X3i, no support for WPA let alone WPA2, no plans from
Dell, buy a new PDA please or stick with WEP or 802.1x which for a small
home LAN is pretty often a non starter.

David.

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 07:54:16 GMT, David Taylor <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>> hardware. Today, Microsoft released WPA2 support for XP SP2, all in
>> software. See:
>> | http://support.microsoft.com/kb/893357
>> | http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
>> It should work in any laptop, with any card, that uses Wireless Zero
>> Config and XP SP2. I haven't tried it yet.

>It's a shame that both MS and the OEM's don't put the same effort into
>other mobile devices for without equal support on them, you still end up
>with a totally fragmented solution and possibly still stuck without the
>ability to upgrade.
>
>E.g. Dell Axim X3i, no support for WPA let alone WPA2, no plans from
>Dell, buy a new PDA please or stick with WEP or 802.1x which for a small
>home LAN is pretty often a non starter.
>
>David.

PPC 2003 has WPA support through 3rd party software.

Fragmented? You're being generous. There are a bunch of protocols in
the specs that are not currently supported. This explains it quite
well.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=67

There's considerably more work to do if one is to support all the
authentication methods specified in the Wi-Fi Alliance expanded
version of the 802.11i standard. Fast roaming is currently not
unsupported by anyone. It will be quite a while before all these
acronyms are uniformly supported. There are quite a few products with
WPA2 certification on the wi-fi.org web pile. However, the handhelds
are conspicuously missing. I think they're waiting for AES support in
hardware, rather than clutter up their limited RAM trying to impliment
it in software.

Windoze Mobile 2003 and Windoze CE 4.2 all have basic EAP-TLS support
for WPA2 from assorted vendors. See:
http://wifi.aximsite.com/axim-03se.html
for instructions.

Here's a 3rd party WPA supplicant (client) for verious handheld
devices:
http://www.meetinghousedata.com/prod...nt/index.shtml
which methinks will work for your Axim.

Also, Funk Softare Oddity Client for PPC has WPA support for the Axim:
http://www.funk.com/Docs/odycppc20man.pdf


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

> Here's a 3rd party WPA supplicant (client) for verious handheld
> devices:
> http://www.meetinghousedata.com/prod...nt/index.shtml
> which methinks will work for your Axim.

Eeek they want money!!

> Also, Funk Softare Oddity Client for PPC has WPA support for the Axim:
> http://www.funk.com/Docs/odycppc20man.pdf

Likewise.

David.

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 18:04:35 GMT, David Taylor <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Eeek they want money!!

The best things in life are free. You'll have to settle for 2nd best.

You could wait for Microsloth to either buy the company and Borg their
product, or embrace and extend the technology thereby wiping out the
company's market. Yeah, monopolies are good for the consumers.

If I ever find time to write the next great wireless utility program,
you can safely bet that it will NOT be free. I need the cash to
support my decadent and lavish lifestyle. Of course, I'm a terrible
programmist and you'll probably refuse to pay for it based on it's
quality. Hmmm.... maybe I'll do something else instead.

Digging into my bookkeeping, I find that I spent about $600 on
shareware and beggarware in calendar 2004. That's a bit more than
usual. During the same period, I received $15 via Paypal for
answering questions in this newsgroup. Google groups shows 950
postings so that's $0.016 per answer. Cheap.



--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> During the same period, I received $15 via Paypal for answering questions
> in this newsgroup. Google groups shows 950 postings so that's $0.016 per
> answer. Cheap.

The proverbial two cents. The Invisible Hand at work?

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 20:15:54 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Neill
Massello) wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> During the same period, I received $15 via Paypal for answering questions
>> in this newsgroup. Google groups shows 950 postings so that's $0.016 per
>> answer. Cheap.

>The proverbial two cents. The Invisible Hand at work?

In the USA, the "invisible hand" is the government tax system. They
have their hand in my pocket and can make my money disappear without a
trace. We now know exactly what my advice and opinions are worth.

Incidentally, the $15 payment cost me much more than $15 repairing the
damage it did to my bookkeeping system. I mis-entered the credit in
the wrong account and spent a substantial amount of time in April
untangleing the mess. Fortunately, that was a one time problem. I
can now efficiently handle gratuities, unsolicited contributions,
Paypal, gifts, bribes, payola, commissions, and cash.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

> The best things in life are free. You'll have to settle for 2nd best.

My gripe is towards Dell to be honest. It's up to them to provide
support for their products a little longer than something like a year to
18 months post sale.

David.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 07:04:25 GMT, David Taylor <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>> The best things in life are free. You'll have to settle for 2nd best.

> My gripe is towards Dell to be honest. It's up to them to provide
>support for their products a little longer than something like a year to
>18 months post sale.
>David.

I'm bored. Might as well pontificate on the topic.

Dell sells extended warranties on most of their products. Prices and
terms vary but the usual rule of thumb is 10-25% of the purchase price
to go to 3 or 4 years. The cost/benefits vary depending on product.
I usually advise my customers to purchase the extended warranty on
high usage equipment (servers, primary office workstations). Laptops
are a problem because Dell has a separate "accidental damage" service
contract, which I find to be rather expensive.

The calcs are a bit messy, as it is necessary to estimate the
replacement and repair costs 3-4 years in advance. Give me a sample
product, initial cost, and I'll work the numbers for you. However, I
can also predict the results without grinding the numbers. The value
depreciation and replacement cost of a product 3-4 years out is often
cheaper than buying the extended warranty. The exception is laptops,
which have a much higher incidence of failure than desktops. You can
tell that Dell knows the MTBF numbers in advance because their
extended warranty costs vary considerably from product to product. In
most cases, extended warranties are like lottery tickets. They're a
tax on the mathematically deficient public.

I've rarely had to use Dell's warranty service. Unfortunately, my
results have been spotty. Onsite service was outsourced to a local
company that methinks has serious competence problems. Replacement
parts are often unobtainable. Next day service is typically 2 weeks.
Yet, when I can get Dell's attention, I can get them to ship me the
parts quickly and be done with it.

Also, you should understand that extended warranty service is not a
sign of a quality vendor. Quite the opposite. Extended warranties
are what is required to convince large customers that the vendor will
not implode leaving them hanging, and that the product is not a piece
of junk.

More often, extending the warranty is cheaper for the manufactory than
introducing the necessary quality in the product required to extend
the lifetime. If a unit has a 10% failure rate over a 4 year period,
but it costs 10% more to increase the product lifetime to 4 years
(which must be applied to ALL production units), it's much cheaper for
the manufactory to simply extend the warranty than to fix the problem.
Even better if you can get the customer to pay for the warranty.
That's why Dell pushes and telemarkets their extended warranty so
aggressively.

Dell could probably offer a lifetime warranty if they wanted. The
catch is that they must exclude accidental damage and customer abuse.
My guess is about half of the real warranty issues appear within the
first year. The out of box failures are usually a great predictor of
future reliability. Past about 3 years, moving parts start to fail
(fans, hard disks, drives). The rest are almost always abuse, lack of
required maintenance, and accidents. If Dell excludes all those, they
will have very few failures to deal with past the first year.

Methinks it would be more honest to call an extended warranty
"insurance". Effectively, you and the manufacturer are gambling on
the reliability of the product. If it fails, and you're not insured,
your repair costs will exceed the cost of the insurance. As with all
insurance policies, you only insure those things that you cannot
afford to lose and destroy (i.e. catastrophic losses). Whatever, the
name, the cost/benfits are calculated exactly the same way.



--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558