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Security Issues in Wireless Home EntertainmentYou will want to set up a wireless media player or put in place a wireless-enabled entertainment system because of the various advantageous associated with wireless connectivity. In particular, there is the added convenience and flexibility when doing away with interconnecting cables. At the same time, you do not want hackers from tapping into your home network to steal personal information or damage your system. Unfortunately, the level of security associated with wireless networks is inherently less than that of wired systems. Wired-LANs are somewhat protected by the natural access constraint of their structure - in particular, if all parts of the LAN resides inside a building protected from unauthorized access. Wireless LANs, being over radio, do not have the same physical access constraints. This renders wireless LAN more vulnerable to tampering than wired LANs. For this purpose, a number of security protocols were devised to provide an acceptable level of wireless security when transmitting data over radio, by encrypting the data contents over the wireless link. All wireless network gear - whether this being a home router, a wireless media player, etc., supports various wireless security protocols intended to make it more difficult for network hackers to tap into your home network. We are saying 'difficult' rather than 'impossible' simply because for the experienced hacker, tapping into someone else network is not impossible; it is true that it can be time-consuming but... Wireless Security Basics: WEP and WPA/WPA2 EncryptionsVirtually, all wireless equipment supports a wireless security feature referred to as WEP bit encryption. WEP - short for 'Wired Equivalent Privacy', is a data encryption technique for wireless local area networks (WLAN), defined in the 802.11 standard. WEP is the original standard for wireless security. It was designed to supposedly provide the 'same' level of security as that of wired local area networks (LANs) by scrambling the information passed between wireless devices. A hacker attempting to tap into your WEP-enabled wireless network would find only meaningless bits. However, the wireless access point and the client device would share an encryption key that is used to scramble and descramble the encrypted information. There are various levels of WEP encryption - depending on the number of bits within the encryption key; the latter can be 64-bit, 128-bit or even 256-bit. The higher the number of bits, the more difficult it will be to decipher, but actual data throughput will suffer as there is more payload for the same amount of data. One should be aware that although WEP do provide a significant level of wireless security - especially at 128-bit and 256-bit encryption, nevertheless it is not 100% secure. There are a number of open source utilities that hackers can use to break a WEP encrypted network in minutes. In other words, if a hacker can receive packets on a WEP protected network, it is only a matter of time till the WEP encryption is cracked. At the same time, it is a fact that while WEP is not perfect, yet with so many unprotected networks, simply having it enabled is often enough to send a hacker away to search for an easier target. WPA, RSN and WPA2 Introduction Wi-Fi Protected Access - or WPA, is an enhanced encryption technique created by the Wi-Fi Alliance to provide improved wireless security over WEP. It is an early version of the 802.11i standard rectified by the IEEE in June 2004; the latter defines the security mechanism for wireless networks after it was shown that WEP has severe wireless security weaknesses. WPA was mainly designed as an intermediate attempt to provide improvement to WEP by implementing in-the-field firmware upgrades to existing 802.11 gear. WPA covers a subset of the defined security mechanism in the final 802.11i standard. WPA was followed by a full implementation of the IEEE 802.11i with the introduction of the WPA2; this is based on the concept of a Robust Security Network or RSN. In RSN based systems, wireless devices need to support additional security capabilities. A fully compliant RSN network is incompatible with existing WEP equipment, though in the transitional period, WEP equipment will still be supported. WPA employs authentication via user ID and password and uses more sophisticated techniques to protect data passing over a wireless link. It distributes different keys to each user; however, it can also be used in a less secure 'pre-shared key' (PSK) mode, where every user is given the same pass-phrase. The PSK can be anything using an 8 to 63 character passphrase. It may also be entered as a 64 character hexadecimal string. Weak PSK passphrases can be broken fairly easy by experienced hackers using easily available programs. It is therefore essential to select a 'good' difficult-to-break passphrase, or preferably enter a full 64-character hexadecimal key for improved wireless security. WPA makes use of a Temporal Key Integrity Protocol or TKIP, to constantly change the encryption key. This dynamically changing of keys makes the WPA/TKIP solution more difficult for a hacker to break the key.
WPA2 is the Wi-Fi Alliance branded version of the final 802.11i standard. The primary enhancement over WPA is the inclusion of the AES block cipher and the Counter-Mode/CBC MAC Protocol (or CCMP encryption protocol) as mandatory. It is this that provides for a stronger, scalable wireless security solution. Instead, WEP and WPA use the RC4 stream cipher, and while WPA can be implemented through a firmware upgrade to a WEP device, WPA2 would require a hardware upgrade as well. RC4 stream cipher makes use of a 128-bit key and a 48-bit initialization vector (IV). However, one major improvement in WPA over WEP is in the handling of the encryption key. Whereas WEP uses the same key, WPA makes use of a temporary key - thanks to the use of TKIP, thus making it more difficult for a hacker to break the system. AES-CCMP introduces a higher level of security than RC4 based systems by providing protection for the MAC protocol data unit (MPDU) and parts of the 802.11 MAC headers. This protects even more of the data packet from eavesdropping and tampering. The CCMP encryption protocol used in AES is equivalent to TKIP in WPA. RSN based solutions - like WPA2, defines a hierarchy of limited life keys, similar to TKIP. And like TKIP, master keys are not used directly in CCMP, but are instead used to derive other keys. The end result: WPA2 encryption is much harder to break than WPA even though the latter already provides significant wireless security improvements over WEP-based devices. Basic Steps in Securing a Wireless NetworkWhat follows are just a few simple basic steps in wireless security - listed in order of importance - you can take to help enhance the security of your wireless networking activity.
The following wireless security measures - while ineffective against determined experienced hackers - may still serve a useful purpose against the majority of inexperienced opportunistic users. Furthermore, these may also force experienced hacker to move elsewhere and find an easier target!
At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that hiding the SSID, or enabling MAC filtering alone, will not prevent anyone from reading the data transmitted over your wireless network, only encryption will do that.
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Review Date: Lots more info at Practical Home Theater Guide Suggested Further Reading:
Wireless Home Theater: A buying guide to Wireless
Speakers Systems
A Practical Guide to Wireless Headphones and Dolby
Headphone technology
Surround Sound
Formats Speaker Placement in Multi-Channel Audio Correct home theater speaker placement plays a critical role towards achieving that seamless ‘enveloping’ sound so important in the overall home theater experience.
Time Delay
Settings in Surround Systems
Home
Theater Equipment Placement
Selecting and Installing Speaker Wire
Home Theater Design:
Home Theater Room Design Basics (1):
Room Acoustics and Lighting
Set-up Discs and Video Calibration Solutions
Quick
Guide to DVI
HDMI
Cable Guide
HDCP and HDTV:
Audio Video
Equipment Racks
Recommended Guides to
This book covers everything from terminology through wireless security and down to products needed. An extremely informative guide that can help you set up and run your own WiFi network.
Through this easy-to-follow step-by-step guide, you’ll learn to design your network, select the components, install any necessary wiring, connect to the Internet, connect PCs to the network, set up wireless security measures, and troubleshoot your network.
Wireless
Media Players
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