| Post 1 made on Monday January 21, 2008 at 23:48 | ...it's new! |
AC4LT Long Time Member |
| |
Does anyone know if or when Philips has committed to adding in wpa2 support?
I think one of the pronto professional models would be ideal for me if it actually supported a modern encryption protocol. Downgrading my network to WEP, even with MAC address filtering isn't a practical option and even running two access points, one with WPA2 and the other with WEP doesn't help since the WEP subnet would need visibility into the WPA2 subnet. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 2 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 00:31 | ...it's new! |
Barry Gordon Founding Member |
| |
I don't understand your last comment re visibility. Both WAPs, the one with wep encryption and the one with wpa encryption can be and should be in the same subnet. The encryption and decryption is WAP based and has nothing to do with IP addresses or sub nets.
Pronto has not commited to wpa encryption as far as I know. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 3 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 11:32 | ...it's new! |
AC4LT Long Time Member |
| |
Thanks, Barry.
What I was trying to say and probably being too brief about was that running a second access point that used WEP would be just as much a security hole as running only a single access point with WEP. Since the WEP AP would be part of the same network as the WPA AP anyone who cracked the WEP encryption would have access to the entire network.
If I ran them as two separate networks that didn't interconnect then it could work but the computers and AV receiver both live on the WPA network and moving the computer to a WEP AP isn't an option.
Guess I'll sit out the pronto professional until they address that deficiency or introduce a new product that does. It's a shame because except for that one achilles heel (really more of an achilles leg since it's such a large problem), it would be perfect for what I want to do. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 4 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 13:21 | ...it's new! |
Techeeze Junior Member |
| |
AC4LT,
I certainly agree with you. One would think that while the Pronto line of remotes are not the most expensive and fully featured remotes on the market, you are still spending close to $1000 to get a very sophisticated remote. And one would think that this dollar amount for a remote would warrant a product that uses somewhat updated technology. And the fact that WEP is currently the only option is somewhat laughable. I mean I could even make my peace with WPA. If I were installing this in a high end home or business where I knew the users have sensitive data, I would be very reluctant to recommend or use the Pronto for this reason. But now for me personally, I wound up going back from WPA to WEP just so that I could use the TSU9400. I am quite pleased with it's features and functionality, however I am still very disappointed that there is not WPA support of any kind. Well are least not yet anyway. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 5 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 18:21 | ...it's new! |
Barry Gordon Founding Member |
| |
| Maybe its just me, but I would think that WEP security plus MAC address filtering on the WAP using WEP for security would give reasonable security. There is no absolute security. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 6 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 19:33 | ...it's new! |
brettd Junior Member |
| |
Hi Barry,
MAC address filtering is unfortunantly about as worthless as not broadcasting your SSID.
Absolutely anyone capable of getting through the WEP security would have abslutely no problems spoofing a MAC address.
You're right that there is no absolute security, but the availability of realitively easy to use tools that facilitate the cracking of WEP has made it a very unsecure system. I really hope Philips are working on this one.
Brett |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 7 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 21:02 | ...it's new! |
AC4LT Long Time Member |
| |
Unfortunately, Brett is right. WEP in any form is as good as no security. And while I agree with Barry that there is no such thing as absolute security, I'd rather not leave the door closed, but not locked which is the metaphor that seems closest to what WEP achieves.
Phillips, if you're listening, you've got at least one sale that could be made if you supported wpa2. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 8 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 22:36 | ...it's new! |
Peter Dewildt Loyal Member |
| |
There were reasons for not putting in WPA. I don't know whether these have been resolved.
From a post in May, 2007
"The WPA specification is not fully standardized at this time. There was support in the first Beta but it was pulled just before release. I suspect it was pulled because of differences of implementation between various routers and the difficulties presented by not having a standard spec."
From a post in July, 2007
"The problems that Philips identified with WPA were
- authentification can take a long time and it was undesirable to have users wait 30 seconds or more to get commands transmitted to the extender.
- the extra data transmitted with WPA was causing the battery to drain quicker" |
Peter
Pronto 1000 (retired), Pronto TSU7000, RFX6000 (retired)
Pronto 2xTSU9600, RFX9400 | [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 9 made on Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 23:11 | ...it's new! |
AC4LT Long Time Member |
| |
Thanks for the info, Peter.
I've never heard it claimed that WPA wasn't a finalized spec. However, taking it at face value, I haven't seen a piece of wireless networking gear in at least two years that didn't support WPA. Perhaps they're out there but until now I hadn't come across one.
I'm glad to hear that they had a technical reason for not including it, though it would have been nice if they had left the choice to us. It might have been a tradeoff many were willing to make. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 10 made on Wednesday January 23, 2008 at 10:53 | ...it's new! |
gbk33 Long Time Member |
| |
| I understand the battery consumption problem, but they should give us the choice to decide. It's kinda like saying here's the most advanced remote on the planet, you need to be pretty smart to make it do what you want.....but we don't think you're smart enough to decide which encrption to use. |
May the pronto be with you | [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 11 made on Wednesday January 23, 2008 at 16:30 | ...it's new! |
bcc Long Time Member |
| |
I agree completely with ac4lt. Requiring users to downgrade their encryption to WEP to use this device makes its 802.11 support crippled. If I set up 2 access points, 1 with WEP and 1 with WPA, then my network is only as secure as the weakest link, WEP, unless I've done a bunch of fancy firewalling.
WPA not standardized? That's a good one. Slimdevices has supported WPA in their squeezebox v3 device for what 2 years now?
Battery consumption? I'd rather leave my remote in a charging cradle every night than have to set up a firewalled WEP network just for it. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 12 made on Wednesday January 23, 2008 at 17:02 | ...it's new! |
nyjklein Long Time Member |
| |
I don't really want to pile on here, but most mobile Smartphones available today that have WiFi capability manage to support WPA/WPA2 without destroying battery life. Both my BlackBerry and my iPhone happily coexist with my home WPA2 network, why can't my Pronto?
I'm stuck with two networks right now, one WEP that has nothing but my TSU9600 and one WPA2 for everything else.
Jeff |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 13 made on Wednesday January 23, 2008 at 23:10 | ...it's new! |
Sogliphy Junior Member |
| |
nyjklein: sure, my smartphone has WPA, but it also frequently takes up to 30 seconds to connect. (I.e. from "Selecting access point" to where the first part of a web page is received)
If I don't allow it to go to sleep and disable the WiFi module (so that it does not have to reconnect again), the battery drains in about an hour.
This message was edited by Sogliphy on Thursday January 24, 2008 at 02:08. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 14 made on Thursday January 24, 2008 at 21:26 | ...it's new! |
nyjklein Long Time Member |
| |
Get a new phone then. Both my iPhone and BlackBerry connect to my WPA2 WiFi network in seconds and remain connected all day with WiFi active without killing the battery.
Jeff |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 15 made on Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 01:51 | ...it's new! |
bcc Long Time Member |
| |
| Has anyone asked philips directly about providing WPA support? The original responses, which don't seem to be from philips, are not really valid. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 16 made on Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 16:49 | ...it's new! |
bert003 Junior Member |
| |
On my router WEP is only possible with the 'B' and 'G' speed's.
So it's impossible to upgrade to the new 'N' speed which my router could do.
I don't know if this is the case for all routers, but apart from the less secure WEP also slower wireless networking is the case when I would attach my Pronto to my main network.
A second WEP router to connect my RFX9400, HTPC and Pronto 9400 will be my solution.
And waiting for WPA2 implementation . . . |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 17 made on Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 17:17 | ...it's new! |
Peter Dewildt Loyal Member |
| |
| The Pronto uses "G". This can't be changed without replacing the wireless hardware. |
Peter
Pronto 1000 (retired), Pronto TSU7000, RFX6000 (retired)
Pronto 2xTSU9600, RFX9400 | [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 18 made on Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 19:19 | ...it's new! |
bcc Long Time Member |
| |
You guys are confused. WPA works with 802.11g just fine. There is no need to start talking about 802.11n.
If everyone is installing protos with WEP then there are a lot of insecure nets out there. If you just plug a WEP router into an existing net without taking special firewall precautions then your whole network has now been opened up and is insecure.
I bet almost no remote control installers know how to firewall insecure WEP networks properly. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 19 made on Wednesday January 30, 2008 at 01:33 | ...it's new! |
Techeeze Junior Member |
| |
Gentlemen,
WEP is NOT secure. Anyone with the appropriate tools can crack it within minutes. Even if you are NOT broadcasting your SSID, and even if you are using MAC filtering. Both of these items are included in the unsecured packets that are passed to and from the router and can be intercepted and spoofed “very” easily. The only way WEP is “somewhat” secure is if you are utilizing CKIP (Cisco Key Integrity Protocol). CKIP is similar to TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol - which is an industry standard for WPA), however it is a Cisco proprietary keying algorithm. So unless you have some enterprise class Cisco AP’s in your home network you will not be able to utilize CKIP for WEP. And even if you have that in your home, most consumer level wireless adapters do not support CKIP at the driver level. Anyway I will leave it at that.
I am not trying to insult anyone I just want to clear all of this WEP vs. WPA conversation up. While I may not be a “pro” on the programming of the Pronto remote, wireless is definitely more in my arena. Now on to a small description surrounding this posting.
•WPA and WEP are security mechanisms for wireless. Both WEP and WPA can operate on 802.11a,b,g,n.
•802.11 a,b,g,n are all modulations techniques and DO NOT care whether the security mechanism is WEP or WPA.
•802.11 a,b,g,n vary in their speed throughputs.
o802.11 “a” – 5GHz band - maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s. Although superior in throughput, 802.11b was much more widely accepted. Much like that of the Beta-Max vs VHS standard.
o802.11 “b” – 2.4GHz band – maximum raw data rate of 11 Mbit/s.
o802.11 “g” – 2.4GHz band - maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s.
o802.11 “n” – 2.4GHz band - theoretical raw data rate of 270 Mbit/s using dual MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) which is why you see multiple antenna’s on the newer “N” routers.
The issue I see with the Pronto line of remotes is NOT that they do not support 802.11n, it is more that they do not allow the option for WPA–PSK(Pre-Shared Key). Typically WPA is more processor intensive than WEP, however I find it hard to think that the Pronto’s proc has a hard time with this. Because if so then you are telling me that a $200 mobile phone can support WPA but not a $700-$900 remote control? And please do not tell me it is because the cell-phone market is so subsidized. If that is the case then Philips has larger problems to deal with. Anyway like I said just wanted to chime in again. |
| [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
| Post 20 made on Wednesday January 30, 2008 at 02:21 | ...it's new! |
Peter Dewildt Loyal Member |
| |
| On Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 19:19, bcc said... |
| You guys are confused. WPA works with 802.11g just fine. There is no need to start talking about 802.11n. |
I'm not confused. Bert was implying that, if he had a Pronto using WPA, he could communicate at "n" speed. |
Peter
Pronto 1000 (retired), Pronto TSU7000, RFX6000 (retired)
Pronto 2xTSU9600, RFX9400 | [ Reply | Quote & Reply |
