WiMax wireless technology

Hey, have you guys heard of wimax? I heard a blurb about it on the news this morning and did a little reading about it.
Instead of a wireless range of only a couple hundred feet, it is supposed to increase that range up to about 30 miles.

And the encryption is supposed to be much better

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to avoid what happened with 802.11." The WiMAX specification mandates AES-CCM encryption between CPEs and base stations, along with key management based on X.509 digital certificates, RSA public-key encryption algorithm [PKCS #1].

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http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9669445822.html

Couple other introductory pages:
http://www.wimax.com/education
http://www.hifn.com/technology/wimax.html

Sounds good. I wonder how it will play out in the real world?

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Instead of a wireless range of only a couple hundred feet, it is supposed to increase that range up to about 30 miles.

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please keep in mind that these are theoretical range and under PERFECT conditions. it in no way means you can stick a router in your house, drive thirty miles away and still have your internet connection.

802.11 when blasted off a directional high gain antenna can have a range of sveral miles with line of sight. Im thinking this will be pretty much the same.

Sure, but it does sound as if it will INCREASE the range. Also, it seems there is definately an improvement in the wireless encryption, which we really need!

I have not implemented any wireless technology myself yet, because I am not happy with the state of security in wireless, this sounds good to me though. I would give this a try barring no major flaws found with WiFax.

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WiFax

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LOL! WiMax.

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I am not happy with the state of security in wireless

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What specifically concerns you?

The relative ease in which one can sniff wireless traffic and crack wireless encryption.

Though WPA implemented with a complex password provides a certain measure of security, the data stream is just all too easy to get ahold of. WPA does provide a certain level of security but I would just prefer that wireless encryption be buffed up before I implement it on my own network.

As long as wireless packets are encrypted in such a way to make even attempting to crack them a waste of time, then the ease of sniffing would not be of much significance, However, that just isn't the case right now. A WPA crack attempt IS well worth one's time.

If I had a compelling reason to deploy wireless, I would only do so at this time with some kind of encrypted tunnel between the gateway and client over wireless to reinforce the security of the data stream.

Something like 802.11i using AES encryption and TKIP would make me feel a lot more comfortable about a wireless setup.

We all know that nothing can be 100% secured, but there is a certain level of assurance that I expect for something like this. Like I said, when a WPA cracking attempt is worth the time and effort (based on the odds of success), it doesn't make me feel real secure about deploying it. Setting up WPA over a more secure encrypted tunnel would provide a certain degree of reasonable assurance that the connection would be secured, but this is a rather (I dont know...this seems like a temporary sort of fix, you know what I mean?) The wireless encryption itself should be secure enough to not have to rig up your connection!

Which is where something like 802.11i using AES and TKIP, or the wiMax solution provides a much more secre means of packet transmission.

Hell, even providing an encrypted tunnel via IPSec over wireless is still vulnerable if one wanted to crack both the IPSec PSK along with WPA! It would still be a worthwhile (albeit time consuming) challenge.

Which leaves not a lot more option than SSH tunneling. Again, it's rediculous to have to rig a connection in this way with something that should have a reasonable amount of security in itself.

Am I just asking for too much here?

"Edit Post." Learn it. Love it. :D

- X

Okay, and now that I have said all that....

I guess it really isn't any different then the brute force password attempts against my SSH server that I recieve on a regular basis. I do use very complex passwords (as well as pub-key auth on my SSH server-nevertheless I still get blasted with brute force password attacks!)

I suppose really, if I set up a wireless segment [perhaps for laptops] and used good application layer security to whereas no passwords were ever sent out in plain text-which I never do. ISP mail over SSL, server logins via SSH, SSL admin logins, sftp/scp, etc. and used a good complex password [which I always do] then in the end, it would be no different then the brute force password attacks against my SSH server.

So that being said, if I talk myself into setting up a wireless segment, can you recommend a good wireless card for Linux which can be used with WPA (or wpa_supplicant)

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A WPA crack attempt IS well worth one's time.

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Could you explain that a little more? Naturally, as with anything else, someone is going to try and find a way to crack it. To my knowledge there is nothing out there yet, unless you know of something.

On the original topic.

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WiMax promises a range of several miles between client and base station, with average speeds of about 40M bps per channel. While the technology road map calls for the eventual ability to roam among base stations, 802.16-2004, or fixed WiMax, does not.

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( source: eWEEK.com's AT&T Tests Enterprise WiMax in the City

Now, from the article you referenced, ( LinuxDevices.com's Security processors target WiMAX base stations, CPE

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Additionally Cavium's new WiMAX security SDKs are available for Linux, priced at $5K to $25K, including development boards, proprietary Linux kernel modules optionally available as source under NDA (non-disclosure agreements), and Linux API libraries.

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( emphasis added; BTW, are there a lot of questionable sites linked to that page, or is that my imagination? )

This really, no, I mean REALLY bothers me.

Just so they don't violate the GNU license they provide the user with source code to build into the user's kernel? They can't ( as I understand the GNU license ) provide the user with a working system unless they release the code. So they provide the user with the code to build a module which will be built by the GNU licensed software, then run buy the same GNU licensed software, and require the user to sign a " non-disclosure agreement " all again, so they don't violate the GNU license, but at the same time have recourse so that they can sue somebody and everybody should they feel their code has somehow been distributed or copied in some manner?

( Does the acronym SCO haunt anyone on this? Oh, wait a miniute, they purchased the right to sue, in their minds, is that correct? So this is not hindsight, it is forethought? )

I have no idea how many lawyers they used to think this up. And although I can not speak for any off hand I know of no lawyers who would recommend a company which they represent utilize such services under such dubious agreements and restrictions. So who will their clients be?

Not being a student of the current GNU license I really am not sure if this would actually constitute a breech of that license, but as they are working an a new draft I think that they should consider actions such as this in their drafting process. If it does not technically violate the license, it certainly does in spirit.

IMHO, based on information in the article referenced.

I know this went off topic, but that is how my mind works, going off in countless directions.

IKnowNot,

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Could you explain that a little more? Naturally, as with anything else, someone is going to try and find a way to crack it. To my knowledge there is nothing out there yet, unless you know of something.

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Rather than print the same information over, let me give you a link to an excellent Flash tutorial on cracking WPA

http://www.crimemachine.com/Tuts/Flash/WPA.html

The attack uses airforge to create a de-authenticate packet and aireplay to inject the packets [both tools from the aircrack suite] Ethereal for capturing the EAPOL WPA packets and cowpatty for brute forcing.

Now, before you say...brute forcing only works with weak passwords, I realize this! That is why I said earlier that using a complex password does go a long ways towards providing a degree of security. But on the other hand, you should see my user/password file for such attacks. It goes WAY beyond a standard dictionary file! [although a complete dictionary file is included! Merged, sorted and uniq'ed from several different dictionary's!] My User/pass file also contains other languages, computer specific terms, a complete 1337-speek'ed dictionary, etc, etc, etc! About the ONLY passwords my password file CAN'T crack are passwords which include symbols, passwords that are only made up of sentence initials [i.e, this is my example password=timep] and those sorts. It really is one hell of a password file! So....knowing this, I am sure that I am not the only one out there who has such a password file. Therefore, an attack such as the one above concerns me. Obviously I do use a complex password. Usually 16 characters or so, alphanumeric, includes symbols, etc. My password file could not crack a password such as these types of passwords that I use, and most likely neither could anyone else's. About the only thing that would crack it, would be a true brute force attack in which every possible combination of keyboard characters was tried. And that of course would take literally forever.

So, on that note....I know that I am reasonably safe from such an attack. I could probably watch such an attack happening without having to worry about if they were going to get in or not. But I do still have my concerns about it.

In regards to your quotes about WiMax IKnowNot, THAT I did not realize. I hadn't heard about that, but I don't like the sound of that either! Which would make me focus in a little more on 802.11i

I heard about this a few months ago when it comes out it is suppose to be great and the range of 30 miles will in reality be like 15 to 20 miles in normal weather with perfect weather and line of sight I think it would just about be 30 miles, but still 15 to 20 miles of range not bad. Also this gives huge problems with wireless hacking the security on the network would have to be much higher because of the extended range making it easer for hackers to get into a network because they can hack it from their house instead of their car and with a range of this size it would literally be impossible to catch some one who has hacked your network because they could be any ware unlike the networks of today ware they have to be close to the AP which it is still next to impossible to catch them its just that they have more places to hide with the bigger range.

Any WiMAX users in here ?