The biggest myth about wireless is that it is not secure. Wireless is only as secure as it is made. Most wireless APs come with several security settings. Many devices default to the WPA (Wireless Protected Access). This security protocol is based on EAP (Extended Authentication Protocol) and uses both a pass key and a group key to maintain a secure environment. WPA outlines the use of several encryption protocols, TKIP (Temporal Key integrity protocol), and in version 2 of WPA, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). TKIP has become less secure over the years but AES remains secure.
IOL Blog Entries for June 2014
Wireless Reliability - Guard Intervals
By Jackson Corson - June 16, 2014
Each transmission burst in 802.11 requires a guard interval that makes it so transmissions do not interfere with one another. Normally this is an 800ns timer that allows for time between bursts. This gives a safe time between transmissions. 802.11n outlined the idea of a short guard interval, decreasing the timer to 400ns. This gives less time between transmissions, which could potentially cause collisions between transmissions from the same device. In tests done in a closed environment, there was a definite increase in packet error rate. Without SGI, there was little to no packet error. With SGI, we saw a 30% increase in packet error rate. This is a significant increase in error, meaning that far more collisions are occurring. However, the throughput of a BSS using SGI was significantly better than a BSS that does not. While the error increased as predicted, the error did not affect the much higher rates that SGI predicted. Is this true in an uncontrolled environment?
Wireless Reliability - Channel Bounding
By Jackson Corson - June 4, 2014
Channel bounding has drastically increased the bandwidth of a BSS (Basic Service Set). With 128 Data subcarriers, transmissions can carry far more coded bits per burst. The issue is that this bounded channel increases the number of channels with noise on them. This means more overlap can occur between WLANs operating within the spectra. As a result of this, channel bounding is not advised in the 2.4 GHz because it will make non overlapping channels no longer independent due to the signal spilling into overlapping channels.