12/7 802.11 (security) question. How do I instruct my laptop to
connect to an AP with specific mac address? (they all have
same SSID) I have the netgear PCMCIA wireless access card. My
netgear utility shows all the access points, but because they
all have the same SSID, I don't have control over which one it
actually connect to. It always seem to connect to the trouble
some AP, and I get connection problems. Occasionally I'll be
connected to the good AP, and my connections are fine (but
sometimes in the middle of doing some stuff It'll reconnect
back to the bad AP). I did not find a way to set my wireless
to connect to specific mac address. This seems like a security
problem. Someone can just setup a bogus AP with the same name
and I have no way of telling my card not to connect to it.
Thanks.
\_ Short answer: "yes, it's a problem." The fact that 802.11b
has, very simplistically explained, 2 "channels", one for overhead
type stuff like joins/parts and the other for actual data (it
sort of has to, otherwise you couldn't negotiate connections with
new hosts easily) is at the root of the possibility of sniffing
wifi auth traffic for key cracking purposes. If there's a way
to let you select an AP by MAC, I'd love to know it. This is why
you should treat _any_ wireless connection as open. -JOhn
you should treat _any_ wireless connection as open. -John
\- to OP: this is the tip of the iceberg. you might look at
Wm Arbaugh's book or some of his WEEB pages, e.g.
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~waa/wireless.html
\_ You can do LEAP or EAP-TLS (if you want actual security)
authentication to ensure you are connected to the correct AP. -aus |
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