[nycbug-talk] How secure: wireless + ssh?

[Okan Demirmen]

On Thu 2005.12.22 at 10:14 -0500, Francisco Reyes wrote:
> Had never had the need for wireless..
> Getting a new laptop and was wondering how safe it is to use a wireless WEP 
> connection with SSH.

since everyone put their two cents in, i will as well.

i now use a combination of things at home: ipsec, authpf, and ssh.

ipsec - it just works.
authpf - it too works well, but less overhead on a few of my dinky
laptops sitting around the house. (also for devices that have yet been
given keys from my ca)
ssh - i've used ppp over ssh for a while now, for various tasks - from
tunneling out of my network and through some others, to tunneling back
home from a "cafe", of sorts, and using my home net to actually do
anything.

the whole "wireless security" thing is somewhat vague. really, the only
thing one *should* worry about is unauthorized access to your wireless
devices. sniffing, and the lot happen, after the wireless gateway with
mail (non-tls), http and whatnot anyway. ssh, tls/ssl and other such
protocols are far better equiped to handle the workload of protecting
your data (streams, etc) - and they are already there, doing their job.
this is why i really like authpf. ever since i "solved" my interference
issues, i've been providing wireless services to my neighbors, and
authpf is just so simple for those "client" machines. i do ipsec for my
own devices (after i've got the key signed), and i'm replacing my ppp
over ssh tunnels with the shinny new openssh native tunnels (even layer2
ones ;).

so that's my $.02 - have a good one everyone.

cheers,
okan