wireless adapter card advanced settings

[setecio]

Is there a guide somewhere to all the advanced settings on laptop wireless cards and what they do. I'm interested in learning about them.
My card (a dell 1390) has :

Fragmentation Threshold
IBSS 54g Mode
IBSS 54g Protection Mode
Locally Administered MAC Address
No Description
Priority & VLAN
Rate
RTS Threshold

But I have seen others on other cards and wonder if some of the settings are useful to fix wifi issues / poor performance.

Thanks

[Tyler]

Some advanced features vary between manufactures.

For the dell 13XX I found this page:
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...8/EN/props.htm

And specifically for the Fragmentation Threshold:
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials...le.php/1468331

Hope it helps

[setecio]

Thanks Tyler .... the Dell link is very helpful

Is WPA security now consider very insecure the way WEP is viewed or is it still reasonably secure ..... or is WPA2 a must now ?

[mwalker]

As you have stated, WEP is not good at all.

WPA and WPA2 can both be word list attacked. So as long as your PSK (Pre Shared Key) is long and strong enough, either should be ok. TKIP (WPA) has been decrypted after a bit of effort but dont think the PSK was found outside of a dictonary attack. AES (WPA2) is better, so if you have a choice, use that.

If you can go WPA2 Radius, this is the best atm. For it to work you need a radius server. With WPA2 Radius, every user has there own username/password or certificate so no PSK. It also means that every session is encrypted with a different key and a unique key exchange. If the PSK is known by someone with a wifi sniffer then they can capature the session key exchange and decrypt all packets.

So, In my opion,
No Auth or Encryption : Only for a free for all
WEP : If you want encryption and limited users, and you have devices that ONLY have WEP.
WPA TKIP : OK if you cant do better.
WPA2 AES : Best SOHO setup
WPA2 Radius : Best of all.

Dont forget, you could have No Auth/Encrytion on the AP then user a vpn tunnel to enter your network, thus not "trusting" any Wifi security at all.

Hidding the SSID and using MAC Address filters will help keep the drive by hackers away, but anyone who sits and collects data will find your SSID and valid mac address that can get access (then, if they have found your key, set their mac to a valid one get in that way)

Thats my 2 cents worth...

[setecio]

Thanks.

VPN ..... What VPN are available for free or low cost usage, specifically for using at hotspots ..... I have heard that this is the way to secure your onnection at wirelss hotspots.

Would something like LogMeIn Hamachi be designed for this,

https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/

or do I need my own network to link to ?

[erhein35]

Thanks for the update.