ALDI MDPPC250 PDA SDIOOOOOOO

[swisstony]

:D Just thought I'd let all you guys know who've been asking
whether the new Aldi PDA is SDIO complient...........
Well it IS!!!!
Just had a scandisk sdio wifi card delivered from the states this morning
and after a little bit of setting up hastle SSID and MAC addresses etc. I got
a full signal. I'm presently browsing around google on it with my other hand
as I'm typing this...
Its strange though, not a mention of this anywhere in all the official Aldi flyers or PDA documentation, but take it from me it works.....

[budgie55]

cool

By the way I have had major problems getting mine to connect to my wireless router when I am not broadcating my SSID. I know the name of the SSID but for some reason it just wont connect to the network unless I broadcast my SSID.

Im not to bothered about broadcasting as I has enebled WPA encryption and have locked the router to my PDA Mac address only but it was a little wierd and annoying.

You broadcasting your SSID SwissTony?

Cheers

Allan

[DavidW]

The WZC (Wireless Zero Configuration) clients in both Pocket PC 2003 and Windows XP, which are architecturally very similar, misbehave badly if you turn off SSID broadcasts on your access point.

As turning off SSID broadcasts provides basically no extra security, the best thing to do is leave SSID broadcasts on and live with it. The best you can do with current Pocket PCs (unless you managing to get the expensive third-party Funk Odyssey Client software to work) is 128 bit WEP and MAC address filtering. Both can be overcome with some effort - but the effort required is very much non-trivial. If you are disciplined, you should change the WEP keys periodically.


I may get round to being more disciplined over wireless security soon - I'm considering adding an 802.11g access point (probably in an expensive new router) to my network, which I shall almost certainly configure as 802.11g-only using some form of WPA. If I can get the necessary RADIUS support somewhere on the network I'll use WPA, otherwise it'll be WPA-PSK. The laptops will be moved over to the new 802.11g wireless network, which is no great problem, as they both run Windows XP, have 802.11g capable wireless hardware and WPA capable drivers, leaving just my Pocket PC on the 802.11b network.

This will make changing my WEP keys much more straightforward!


If I can (this is another feature dependent on an expensive router), I'll firewall the 802.11b network and provide IPSec features on the router, so to access the rest of the LAN, the Pocket PC will have to use IPSec.



David

[budgie55]

thx for that David

I have been playing with IPSec policies in Win2k/2003 and XP Pro recently as I wanted to setup a VPN tunnel for getting secure access to my machine/s.

It was rather complicated and messy to be honest but I think I am nearly there. Problem is M$ want you to use L2TP/IPSec which involves certificates and or a RADIUS server. L2TP is a bit overkill for the level of security I want so I have managed to find a way to setup a straight IPSec VPN tunnel without using L2TP.

Just need to find time to test it now.

Bought myself a Linksys G Router which is a nice little bit of kit for £55 ish. Doubles up as a hardware firewall although I have turned it off as I aleady have another wired Linksys to look after that aspect.

Dunno how much you was planning on spending on an "expensive" router but it could be overkill spending to much on one unless you want to "REALLY" lock down your setup.

Once again thanks for your reply always enjoy reading your posts as you go into lots of detail to help people out.

Cheers m8

Allan

[DavidW]

I want a device with support for a routed IP block on the Internet side (I'm likely to team it with a cheap Conexant single port ADSL router in half-bridge mode), which means I don't just want a straightforward NAT router. For various reasons, not least because I have other ZyXEL kit I'm happy with, I am considering a ZyXEL ZyWALL 35 with a ZyAIR G-100 card inserted, though I'll probably hang around until the ZyWALL 35's baby brother, the ZyWALL 5 is out, as that will quite possibly be sufficient for my needs though it seems it will lack the full policy based bandwidth management of the ZyWALL 35 (which would be useful if I ever get into VoIP).


The ZyWALLs act as VPN endpoints; just one attraction of these routers. Many of them are ICSA certified firewalls and IPSec devices. Obviously, if I'm getting into routed IP I really want a robust firewall at the boundary.

I used to work in research and development for a networking company, so I tend to use high end features of network kit. There's a 26 port level 2 managed switch at the centre of the LAN here (part of which is Gigabit - as I'm backing up over the network, that's useful), and I am making use of VLANs and the SNMP management features of the switch.


I did consider a Linksys router - but they're a little too low-end for me, really, and my Linksys 802.11b access point has annoying firmware bugs that were never fixed (there seems to be an RTS/CTS issue with Agere cards). I realise there's third party firmware for the WRT54G, but life is short - I want something turnkey and robust. The router I'm planning to retire is an old ZyXEL unit.


It's proving an expensive month for the computer systems here - Dell got a GBP3200 order from me yesterday (fairly high spec laptop and video projector). My mother is a self-employed consultant, hence the high-end kit we run.

I don't think many home systems have four printers across three network printer servers (colour laser, old mono laser, A3 colour inkjet, colour inkjet with CD-R support), a 26 port switch, network based tape backup, a managed switch, two UPSes, two PCs (one a dual Xeon box), two laptops, my Pocket PC and I have no idea how much network cabling buried in the walls! All this kit gets used heavily.



David

[swisstony]

SSID and MAC Addressing problems with scandisk wifi.

Yes Budgie, had the same problems with SSID.( I use no broadcast SSID
and only allow trusted pcs on my home network).
The work around is easy.

1. Turn on SSID broadcasting in the router and allow all pcs to access the
system.

2. Turn on the PDA and it'll find the broadcast SSID and establish a connection.

3. Turn SSID broadcasting off on the router.

4. Find mac address from PDA, (its under ping info).

5. Add MAC address to trusted pc network.

6. Reboot the router.

As the PDA already remembered the SSID connection from the time
it was connected there's nothing else to touch at the PDA level, and
you get back trusted PC security and non broadcasts of SID for added wifi network security. You can then start thinking about encrytion........

[budgie55]

cheers for that m8 will give it a go now

Thanks again

Allan

[DavidW]

You may find if you turn SSID broadcasting off that you won't find the wireless network again after you've removed and reinserted the wireless card - it's a bit driver specific. Certainly my Wi-Fi card (which uses an Agere chipset) doesn't work properly with SSID broadcasting off.

I believe the consensus now is that turning SSID broadcasts off does not significantly enhance security. Most modern Wi-Fi sniffing tools will find access points with SSID broadcasts off. The SSID can apparently be deduced from the on-air traffic.



David

[swisstony]

Re your points DavidW.
A WIFI network with no broadcast SSID will detect the WIFI network on the PDA as "NO SSID" and although you can see that there is a wireless network in your vicinity you won't be able to connect to it. Once you've turned on the SSID broadcast and your PDa has connected to it the wifi card will "remember" the local WIFI network parameter and re-connect to it even though you've turned off the broadcast SSID option at the router level.
All WIFI products should detect a WIFI network. Thats the nature of the game, but they won't be able to connect unless the connection parameters
are correct.
Tony

[DavidW]

This is not a theoretical situation. My Pocket PC Wi-Fi setup (which, admittedly, is not a Sandisk SDIO card) malfunctions with SSID broadcasts off on the Access Point.

I've just tried it - I set up the connection with SSID broadcasts on, turned SSID broadcasts off on my AP and on the second time I ejected and reinserted the wireless card, I couldn't find the wireless network. This is repeatable - a second attempt produces exactly the same results - it works the first time with SSID broadcasts off, but won't detect the wireless network on any subsequent attempt.


I get similar problems with the Windows XP Professional SP1 laptop after it's been used on other wireless networks - it won't find my home wireless network at all until I turn SSID broadcasts back on.


If your setup works fine with SSID broadcasts off - fine. However, it is a widely reported issue that the WZC (Wireless Zero Configuration) client in both Pocket PC 2003 and Windows XP misbehaves if SSID broadcasts are off.

Sometimes wireless cards come with the option to disable WZC and use their own client - which can make them more robust in operation with SSID broadcasts off.


As I said, I believe the collective opinion of those who have deep knowledge of the wireless network protocols (and who are involved in the ongoing work on 802.11i, nicknamed WPA2) is that turning SSID broadcasts off provides at best minimal extra security.


In conclusion, if your system works fine with SSID broadcasts off - great. If you find your system is unreliable with SSID broadcasts off, turn them back on and don't worry too much about the minimal loss of security.

There are situations where turning SSID broadcasts off will prevent wireless network detection, especially using the WZC client. It is important to know that there are situations where SSID broadcasts have to be on - my wireless network is one of them. General advice to turn off SSID broadcasts is therefore dangerous.



David

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