Hello Alan,

AL> Well, instead of arguing and writing a long post, I
AL> again direct you to a very sufficient explanation...
AL> at the Service Factory website.  They provided a
AL> really impressive, full, explanation.  Best, Alan

First of all, my comments were a correction of yours, regardless of
what was written on the website, the fact remains that 802.1x DOES NOT
require smart card ID's, more to the point that website pertains to
GSM and GPRS integration which uses a SIM (like in your GSM phone)
rather then a smart card ID for the authentication, there has been
considerable debate on this on the BAWUG list as to how secure this
type of authentication really is, due to the fact it was presumed
attackers would be limited by GSM speeds while trying to crack SIMs in
the past, once these become integrated into 802.11 devices the ability
to crack them becomes a lot easier time wise.

802.1x is a standard with many types of authentication plugins allowed
to authenticate both user and access points to the users.

EAP/MD5 - password
EAP/TLS - x.509 certificate
EAP/SIM - GSM SIM
to name but a few...

As most authentication is actually software based, password is
obviously still the easiest method, followed by x.509 certificates
(some of these can incur a cost, unless you use a free certificate
provider such as CACert.org)

Any/All other methods are bound to be expensive to implement due to
the need of uncommon 3rd party hardware at both ends. Where as the
previous methods only need software upgrades, or configuration.

-- 
Best regards,
 evilbunny                            mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

children. Buy American!

http://www.cacert.org - Free Security Certificates
http://www.nodedb.com - Think globally, network locally
http://www.sydneywireless.com - Telecommunications Freedom

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