My co-worker Aaron and I spoke today at the annual conference of the Iowa Distance Learning Association and the Iowa Association for Communication Technology. We gae a presentation about wireless security, why it's important, and an overview of the various technologies involved in it. Supposedly, we were a hit, but I'll wait until I see the evaluation forms to believe it. I did only see one person sleeping during our talk, but there was another one nodding off...
It looks like I found a wireless card that does work with 802.1X (other than Apple-branded cards) for users of older Macintoshes. The MacWireless 11g Card works fine in a student's Lombard with OS X 10.3. This is the same student who had tried the misleading D-Link card in the past, and she bought this one on my suggestion: So, if you've got any users out there who have pre-AirPort Macs that they want to get on an 802.1X network, this is the only solution I've found so far, it uses the integrated Apple AirPort drivers, so setup is identical to the AirPort cards. We're using PEAP and MSCHAPv2 here, and so far it seems to be working great, even if this 333Mhz G3 is a bit slow.
Just a word of warning about the DLink DWL-G560X wireless card, DLink sells this card exclusively for Macs, and claims numerous times on their web site (and in the PDF data sheet and in the specifications) that it will work with 802.1X: Except that there isn't actually any 802.1X support!!!!!!!!!
I had a student bring it in with her Lombard today, and there's nothing in the utility to configure 802.1X. I called their Tech Support, and I slowly repeated myself about three times, they confirmed that the web site is wrong. The card only supports WPA-PSK and WEP, which are consumer-grade encryption at best.
Considering the student's father specifically bought this card for 802.1X support, I hope they're able to return it, but I just didn't want anyone else to fall victim to the same trap. D-Link claimed that they'd change the web site, but since this is how "Ejaz Mahfuz" wrote up my call, I doubt it's going to happen soon:
In the product manual there is no option to setup the utiliyt with the security 802.1x. Neither it says in the local websit. But the product description on the site is not right about the security about the 802.1x.
I'm going to be presenting at the Iowa Association for Communication Technology annual conference on April 1 in Cedar Rapids. It's a joint conference with the Iowa Distance Learning Association. My co-worker Aaron Howard and I will be covering the evolution of our campus wireless network over the last 5 years, as well as the security and usability implications of various wireless security methods in the chaotic campus network environment.
I spent much of my Martin Luther King Jr. Day (which we do get off, though we don't get Veteran's Day, President's Day, or Columbus Day, since apparently universities don't have to appear sensitive to those groups) helping our local AARP Tax Aide office get their computers networked wirelessly and securely. They prepare taxes for low income and/or elderly persons for no charge. My neighbor is a member of the local Retired Senior Volunteer Program who runs the computers for this yearly. He said last year that they prepared about 1100 returns, so it was definitely worth a trip from me out there to get their network secured and encrypted.
