4 ms·

> Another feature will strengthen user privacy in open networks through individualized data encryption. WPA1 can arguably be forgiven a lot of shortcomings giv

> Another feature will strengthen user privacy in open networks through individualized data encryption. WPA1 can arguably be forgiven a lot of shortcomings given its circumstances, but I never understood why this wasn't in WPA2. I understand that the station can't authenticate the AP in this case, but it still seems like it's strictly better for the traffic to be encrypted. What am I missing?

danellis 9y ago
> I never understood why this wasn't in WPA2 Perhaps they thought that this would be taken care of at a higher protocol layer. ISTR that things like IPSEC opportunistic encryption was hyped a lot at the time.
wmf 9y ago
The same reason browsers don't allow self-signed certificates, I guess. Those security people think a false sense of security is worse than no security.
- zrm 9y ago
  The false sense of security is what WPA2 gives anyway. Coffee house has a password on their wifi? Great, then only someone with the password can impersonate the AP, which is only... everyone. You can't tell everybody something and still use it as a secret. What they should be doing is putting the public key of the AP on the wall as a QR code. Or the real solution, which is for everything to be end-to-end encrypted regardless.
  - kabes 9y ago
    > What they should be doing is putting the public key of the AP on the wall as a QR code Except if the attacker has his own QR code stickers.
    - QasimK 9y ago
      If it’s inside a coffee shop or other physical locations the attempt is likely to be caught. Or, put the code inside a photo frame making it easier for staff to distinguish.
gsich 9y ago
You can have per-device stream encryption with WPA2, just use 802.1x. If you accept any user/password you'll have a public wlan where people can't eavesdrop.
- sohkamyung 9y ago
  WPA-PSK already does this (per-device stream encryption). The per-stream encryption is specified during the four way handshake via the ANonce and SNonce values [1]. However, this is only true if the handshake is not intercepted or snooped on by a third party. If it is, then the attacker knows enough to decrypt your data. 802.1x provides extra protection by ensuring the initial PSK is not know to the attacker, making the initial snoop of the handshake ineffective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i

danellis 9y ago

> I never understood why this wasn't in WPA2 Perhaps they thought that this would be taken care of at a higher protocol layer. ISTR that things like IPSEC opportunistic encryption was hyped a lot at the time.

wmf 9y ago

The same reason browsers don't allow self-signed certificates, I guess. Those security people think a false sense of security is worse than no security.

zrm 9y ago
The false sense of security is what WPA2 gives anyway. Coffee house has a password on their wifi? Great, then only someone with the password can impersonate the AP, which is only... everyone. You can't tell everybody something and still use it as a secret. What they should be doing is putting the public key of the AP on the wall as a QR code. Or the real solution, which is for everything to be end-to-end encrypted regardless.
- kabes 9y ago
  > What they should be doing is putting the public key of the AP on the wall as a QR code Except if the attacker has his own QR code stickers.
  - QasimK 9y ago
    If it’s inside a coffee shop or other physical locations the attempt is likely to be caught. Or, put the code inside a photo frame making it easier for staff to distinguish.

gsich 9y ago

You can have per-device stream encryption with WPA2, just use 802.1x. If you accept any user/password you'll have a public wlan where people can't eavesdrop.

sohkamyung 9y ago
WPA-PSK already does this (per-device stream encryption). The per-stream encryption is specified during the four way handshake via the ANonce and SNonce values [1]. However, this is only true if the handshake is not intercepted or snooped on by a third party. If it is, then the attacker knows enough to decrypt your data. 802.1x provides extra protection by ensuring the initial PSK is not know to the attacker, making the initial snoop of the handshake ineffective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i