New Wi-Fi Direct Protocol We've Got Some Answers

I've seen a lot of discussion over the new Wi-Fi Direct protocol and it seems like no one can really nail down all the specifics. So I've decided to do a little digging and do my best to answer a few questions that I've seen posted. Some of these answers and more can be found via the Wi-Fi Alliance Frequently Asked Questions page.

Backward Compatibility - One of the most often asked question is will it work with legacy Wi-Fi devices. The answer is yes and no. Legacy devices will be supported for connecting to a new Wi-Fi Direct certified device but your older devices will not support the new protocol to do any routing or directing of network traffic as a Wi-Fi Direct device would.

Will A Software Update Make My Device Wi-Fi Direct? - It is my understanding that only new Wi-Fi Direct certified devices, which there are some already out there, can use the new protocol. So no AFAIK a software update will not work to make your older device into a Wi-Fi Direct device. I believe these are new chips and a new protocol so until I hear otherwise I'll stand by that assumpotion

How many devices can connect? - This is a tough one to answer as it really depends on your devices. A Wi-Fi Direct-certified network can be one-to-one, or one-to-many. The number of devices in a Wi-Fi Direct network is expected to be smaller than the number supported by traditional standalone access points.

Your Router or AP can connect literally hundreds of devices a Wi-Fi Direct network is really only meant to handle a few devices at one time. Some devices will limit the number of connections to multiple other devices as this is an optional feature that will not be supported in all Wi-Fi Direct-certified devices; some devices will only make 1:1 connections, some will allow several devices to be connected at once.

How far will a Wi-Fi Direct connection travel? - Just like any standard Wi-Fi device in use now a Wi-Fi Direct devices will have a variable range. Things like dense walls, interference from other devices ect will have an undoubtedly have an affect on your range. The max advertised distance is 200m but that's not likely to happen. So I'd say like most standard Wi-Fi devices your range should be expected to be wide enough to reach throughout your entire house.

How About Security? Is Wi-Fi Direct Secure? - I'm on the fence about this one. Wi-Fi Direct uses forced WPA2 authentication and encryption which can not be disabled. That's all great and all but that doesn't help once a device is connected. P2P connections are inherently insecure and without a firewall or added security allowing device like cameras, smartphones and god knows what to become a node for network you might be asking for trouble. Of course its assumed that you are only going to be making connections with 'trusted' sources, but is that really likely?

Part of the problem I see is the Wi-Fi Direct program use a service discovery association which relies on a simple handshake protocol for a connection. Basically any one can see your Wi-Fi Direct device that is 'discoverable' and can ask you for a connection or they can be 'discoverable' themselves and allow you a connection. This opens a ton of doors to several types of attacks namely "man in the middle attacks". I also see the potential for brute force attacks that can result in a device being forced to accept a connection. WPA has already been cracked and hackers can already insert malicious code into transmissions so I really question the security here.

The Wi-Fi Alliance says Wi-Fi Direct defines a new pre-association discovery method, which limits the amount of information given about device services prior to association (and before having an IP address). From my understanding this should provide some added security as an attacker won't know much about the device they are connecting to thus limiting there attack. But again I see many areas of concern!

If I make a Wi-Fi Direct connection will others see the contents of my device? - This is one major area of concern! If you've ever been to an internet cafe and browsed any of the other connection you know many times users have file and network sharing on. Essentially providing an open door to shared files on their PCs. Apparently this won't be an issues as nothing is shared without your permission. The content available over a Wi-Fi Direct group connection is driven by the applications you are using. While there may be applications which allow an authorized use to “browse” the content on your device, most applications will have a specific focus (e.g., sharing a game application or transferring photos).

Again, this is another issue that is very much in a grey area so users will want to make sure their Apps aren't sharing more than they want them to. I can already see this as being potentially exploited so make sure you are safe!

My Conclusion:

For now it seems as though there are a ton more questions than there are answers. I've seen numerous discussions on several sites as to how and why you'd implement Wi-Fi Direct. To be honest for an average user that already has a home wireless network you aren't going to gain much by upgrading to new devices.

One area that would be helpful that I didn't touch on is the use of a Wi-Fi Direct device as an AP to share a network connection. This could potentially be useful for users that need to expand their coverage throughout there house or for families that use multiple devices connected to a single wireless broadband connection.

The tone of my article might be a bit negative and admittedly I'd say I don't like the idea of my 'dumb' devices potentially being nodes for everyone else to connect to. I'll also say I'm not big on all my devices being wired into each other. But I do see some potential upsides here.

If you want more details checkout the Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi Direct Page:

• Search for products certified for Wi-Fi Direct
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Press Release

Google Gives The Gift Of Free WiFi At Participating Airports For The Holidays

The holiday season Google is making lift a little easier for holiday travelers by offering free airport WiFi at more than 47 participating airports across the country.

A few weeks ago, Google announced that they'll be working with Virgin America to give free WiFi to all passengers on Virgin flights this holiday season. Not only will they be offering free WiFi on Virgin Flights but starting today and lasting through January 15th, Google has announced that the will be teaming with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to offer free WiFi in 47 airports across the country.

The gift currently includes Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely. You can see the full list of airports here.

Not to be outdone by Google's free WiFi offer Yahoo has joined the bandwagon and has announced that starting today and running through an entire year they will be offering free Wi-Fi at Times Square in New York City.

As for Microsoft they have been the leaders in this bandwagon race to give away freebies. Originally launched in September at thousands of locations, Microsoft has teamed with mobile ad network JiWire to provide their free WiFi. Micrsoft's WiFi comes with a bit of a twisted added, users must agree to make at least one search on Bing.

The campaign aims to make more people aware of Bing and allow them to try the search engine, according to David Blumenfeld, senior vice president of strategy and business development at JiWire. "We're all creatures of habit, so giving away free Internet access in exchange for one search on Bing is a great way to change user behavior," he says.

No specifics have been released as to where these Microsoft/JiWire hot spots are located just that they are in "thousands of locations" which are mainly airports and hotels.

Wi-Fi Alliance Reveals New Logo and Announces First Wi-Fi Certified 802.11n Draft 2.0 Products

Following reports that the IEEE is expected to approve the 802.11n wireless LAN standard the Wi-Fi Alliance has announced they will be releasing a new logo certifying products that meet or exceed their testing standards. The organization has also announced the approval of the first of several new products and testing suites that fulfill the "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED" interoperability test bed program.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 products sporting an eye-catching new logo will soon reach store shelves, as the Wi-Fi Alliance certification program nears its late June launch. The Alliance today unveiled a re-designed consumer logo for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n Draft 2.0 products, and announced the products and reference designs that will comprise its test bed for interoperability certification.

With the potential to deliver up to five times the throughput and up to twice the range of previous-generation Wi-Fi gear, products based on the new 802.11n draft 2.0 standard can do more than ever before. Consumers will soon be able to take advantage of whole-home coverage and content-rich applications such as streaming high-definition video, online gaming with multiple users on a single network, and speedy file transfer of photos, music, and more. Enterprise users will be able leverage 802.11n products to increase network capacity and improve robustness.

Wi-Fi certification will ease the purchase process by delivering 802.11n draft 2.0 products that have been tested for industry-wide interoperability, the very latest security protection, and backward compatibility with previous generations of Wi-Fi gear.

"We are proud of the achievement of our member companies in developing this breakthrough certification program," said Wi-Fi Alliance managing director Frank Hanzlik. "This milestone means that consumers and business users alike can feel confident that the 802.11n products they buy will deliver the user experience they require."

"With the arrival of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 products, we end the practice of uncertain claims of Wi-Fi draft compliance by independent vendors," said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research. "Consumers can now purchase products with improved performance and be assured of interoperability. Prospective buyers should understand that the Wi-Fi Alliance will provide future certification for the eventual 802.11n final specification and assess their own timeframe for a movement to 802.11n."

"Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n is a game-changing milestone for Wi-Fi technology that enables the truly networked home," added Hanzlik. "With the advancements of 802.11n, Wi-Fi is the very best technology to connect computing, communication and entertainment devices. It can enable the entire family to access exciting content throughout the home, while further extending the key productivity advantages of Wi-Fi in the business setting."

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n technology holds wide consumer appeal and will propel users to use next-generation applications more frequently. Recent research from Wi-Fi Alliance and Kelton Research indicates that 78% of US Wi-Fi users are interested in upgrading their Wi-Fi systems in order to gain improved range and/or throughput. Moreover, nearly 70% of the Wi-Fi users polled indicated that a faster Wi-Fi connection would prompt them to use multimedia applications such as video and gaming more frequently.

The following companies supply the products used in the interoperability test bed, and have the first devices to become Wi-Fi CERTIFIED:

• Atheros XSPAN with SST Draft 2.0 802.11n Dual-Concurrent 2.4/5GHz Router with Atheros AR7100 Series Wireless Network Processor
• Atheros XSPAN with SST Draft 2.0 802.11n Dual-Band 2.4/5GHz Card Bus
• Broadcom Intensi-Fi 802.11n Router: BCM94705GMP
• Broadcom Intensi-Fi 802.11n Card: BCM94321MC123
• Cisco Access Point
• Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
• Marvell TopDog WLAN solutions (Station Card)
• Marvell TopDog WLAN solutions (Access Point)
• Ralink MIMObility RT2800PD Chipset featuring the RT2860 802.11n 2T3R MAC/BBP and the RT2850 802.11n Dual Band RFIC
• Ralink MIMObility RT2800PD Access Point

• In addition, WildPackets OmniPeek Workgroup Pro is included as a test bed software tool.

A white paper for consumers and retailers entitled "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0: Taking Wi-Fi to the Next Level," as well as a product search tool for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products, is available online at www.wi-fi.org.

About the Wi-Fi Alliance
The Wi-Fi Alliance is a global, non-profit industry association of more than 300 member companies devoted to promoting the growth of wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). With the aim of enhancing the user experience for mobile wireless devices, the Wi-Fi Alliance's testing and certification programs ensure the interoperability of WLAN products based on the IEEE 802.11 specification. Since the introduction of the Wi-Fi Alliance's certification program in March 2000, more than 3,400 products have been designated as Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™, encouraging the expanded use of Wi-Fi products and services across the consumer and enterprise markets.

Source: Wi-Fi Alliance: Press Release

Starbucks Moves To AT&T Hot Spots

Computerworld.com reports that Starbucks Corp. has announced that it is moving away from T-Mobile as its in-store Wi-Fi provider and will transition to AT&T Inc.'s Wi-Fi service in more than 7,000 of its high-end coffee shops beginning this spring.

Starbucks has said it will give customers who use a Starbucks card two hours of free wireless access per day. Additional time will cost $3.99 for a two-hour session and monthly memberships will cost $19.99 and include access to any of AT&T's 70,000 hot spots worldwide.

Nearly all of AT&T's broadband Internet customers, about 12 million, will automatically have unlimited free Wi-Fi access at Starbucks, the companies said. This comes on the heels of the AT&T plans to offer free Wi-Fi to almost all of its current broadband subscribers.

The deal boosts the number of AT&T hotspots in the U.S. to 17,000 — the most in the nation. AT&T previously had around 10,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S. in places like airports, McDonald's restaurants, Barnes & Noble bookstores, coffee shops, and sporting venues.

A full list of hotspot locations can be found at the AT&T Wi-Fi website. AT&T users simply have to find the network (SSID: attwifi), and log in using their primary DSL or U-Verse account username and password.

Wireless network admins wising up

But drive-by surveys in New York, London and Paris still spot lots of unsecured hot spots


Owners of wireless hot spots are doing better at securing their networks, but about a fifth of corporate access points in London, Paris, and New York remain open to all comers, RSA Security Inc. reported Thursday.

Reprising past surveys, RSA personnel drove or walked through swaths of each city, logging each wireless access point detected by a specially-equipped laptop, and recording data including the service set identifier (SSID), security protocol, signal strength, and operational mode. In New York, for example, the team covered Manhattan's Midtown and Downtown, and parts of Uptown as far north as 125th Street.

On average, survey results were encouraging, said Toffer Winslow, a vice president of product management at RSA. "Folks are securing their access points more, and more with advanced encryption such as WPA rather than plain old WEP," he said.

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a 1999-era data encryption standard now considered inadequate, and has been supplanted by WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, which requires stronger passwords and uses a 128-bit key rather than WEP's 40-bit key. However, WEP is still offered as the default security technique by most wireless hardware.

In all three cities, the percentage of hot spots that were secured by some kind of encryption was higher than last year. In London, the numbers improved from 76% to 81%, while New York climbed from 75% to 76%, and Paris moved from 78% to 80%. WPA use also grew, Winslow said, with 49% of the business wireless networks in New York locked down with tighter security. London and Paris came in second and third, with 48% and 41% WPA usage, respectively.

But a substantial percentage of business wireless networks still run without security. Eighteen percent of the detected corporate hot spots in both Paris and London were unsecured, while New York topped that at 21%. "This strikes me as very foolish," said Winslow.

Living almost as dangerously were significant minorities of hot spots that used default SSIDs and media access control (MAC) addresses. In London, 30% of the wireless networks relied on the manufacturer's SSID -- usually the name of the hardware maker, such as Linksys -- or preset MAC address. New York ranked slightly better, at 24%, but Paris beat both by a wide margin: Only 13% of the wireless access points sniffed by RSA in the city of light used defaults.

"Change the default network settings, that's No. 1," said Winslow when asked to list recommendations for wireless users. "Use [encryption] protocols stronger than WEP, and when you're at a public hot spot, VPN is essential.

"I wouldn't even call these 'best practices' anymore" he said. "They're just the reasonable practices."

Michigan man dodges prison in theft of Wi-Fi

A Michigan man who used a coffee shop's unsecured Wi-Fi to check his e-mail from his car could have faced up to five years in prison, according to local TV station WOOD. But it seems few in the village of Sparta, Mich., were aware that using an unsecured Wi-Fi connection without the owner's permission--a practice known as piggybacking--was a felony.

Each day around lunch time, Sam Peterson would drive to the Union Street Cafe, park his car and--without actually entering the coffee shop--check his e-mail and surf the Net. His ritual raised the suspicions of Police Chief Andrew Milanowski, who approached him and asked what he was doing. Peterson, probably not realizing that his actions constituted a crime, freely admitted what he was doing.

"I knew that the Union Street had Wi-Fi. I just went down and checked my e-mail and didn't see a problem with that," Peterson told a WOOD reporter.

Milanowski didn't immediately cite or arrest Peterson, mostly because he wasn't certain a crime had been committed. "I had a feeling a law was being broken," the chief said. Milanowski did some research and found Michigan's "Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks" law, a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Milanowski, who eventually swore out a warrant for Peterson, doesn't believe Milanowski knew he was breaking the law. "In my opinion, probably not. Most people probably don't."

Indeed, neither did Donna May, the owner of the Union Street Cafe. "I didn't know it was really illegal, either," she told the TV station. "If he would have come in (to the coffee shop), it would have been fine."

But apparently prosecutors were more than aware of the 1979 law, which was revised in 2000 to include protections for Wi-Fi networks.

"This is the first time that we've actually charged it," Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Lynn Hopkins said, adding that "we'd been hoping to dodge this bullet for a while."

However, Peterson won't be going to prison for piggybacking. Because he has no prior record, Peterson will have to pay a $400 fine, do 40 hours of community service and enroll in the county's diversion program.