Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

iPhone 2.0 Software Adds 802.1X for Enterprises
The Inevitable iPhone 3G Post
Wi-Fi Still a Missing Piece of iPhone

Site Philosophy

This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.

Powered by
Movable Type

Recently in Phones Category

July 10, 2008

iPhone 2.0 Software Adds 802.1X for Enterprises

By Glenn Fleishman

Apple adds secure enterprise logins for iPhone: The iPhone 2.0 software, available through a download link for existing 2G iPhones today, adds promised support for the 802.1X port-based authentication required in any company that's even remotely serious about its network security. 802.1X isolates connecting to an access point from gaining access to the network to which the access point is connected. A special client, known as a supplicant, must provide the right credentials for a device to be approved for access. Cryptography binds the process. (Instructions for manually installing the software are over at Wired. The update will likely be pushed out via iTunes to current owners tomorrow, and is included on the iPhone 3G, which goes on sale starting today over the international dateline and tomorrow in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere.)

wpa_enterprise_iphone.jpg Apple splits its 802.1X support into two pieces. There's basic support built into the iPhone 2.0 software, found in the Settings application's Wi-Fi section. Click Other. Click the None label next to Security, and the WPA Enterprise and WPA2Enterprise options appear. Select either, and the main login screen lets you enter the network's name (SSID), a user name, and a password. This basic method is limited to WPA Enterprise and WPA2 Enterprise, the two most common (and most secure) forms of 802.1X.

Most enterprises will want much more control over this process, and Apple provides the iPhone Configuration Utility, currently available in its most complete form only as a Mac OS X application, and in more limited forms as Web 2.0 applications for Windows and Mac OS X.

The utility serves two purposes: creating configuration profiles, including for multiple Wi-Fi networks and VPN connections; and allowing iPhones in an enterprise to run internally developed iPhone software. The Wi-Fi profiles allow you to create WEP or WPA/WPA2 802.1X configurations, and include support for choosing allowed EAP messaging types, configuring authentication elements associated with a given EAP type, and adding server certificates and names for better authentication control.

iphone_wifi_prov_proto.jpg

Once created, these profiles can be distributed throughout a company via email or as a direct download to the iPhone via an intranet Web server. Apple chose not to encrypt them, which means that certain information that's not secured--such as the shared secret for certain VPN connections--could be disclosed to someone who had access to the profile or could download it off the local network.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:51 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Phones, Security | 1 Comment

June 11, 2008

The Inevitable iPhone 3G Post

By Glenn Fleishman

Yes, I touched an iPhone 3G: At Apple's big developer event kickoff on Monday, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 3G. Later that day, in a briefing, I was able to handle and use the phone briefly. It's lovely. But its inclusion of 3G service coupled with Wi-Fi, as well as a real GPS chip coupled with assistive cell-tower triangulation and Wi-Fi network location approximation means that you have a device that might fairly replace a computer for many purposes. I've had an iPhone with 2G (EDGE) service since its release, and I recently took a two-day trip with my older son leaving my computer behind. (I was able to use a relative's machine, but only did so to be able to type email more efficiently.) If Apple would simply allow the use of the Bluetooth HID profile (human interface devices) for keyboard and mouse support, a compact foldable keyboard would be the only accessory I would need.

Note that the iPhone 2G and 3G aren't more powerful than other, similar devices. Symbian platform devices from Nokia and others are in notably short supply in the US, but come in great quantities and varieties elsewhere, and have some pretty impressive computational power; Nokia owns nearly 50 percent of the worldwide smartphone market. Likewise, you can run desktop-to-mobile programs under Windows Mobile that let you have real computer applications repackaged for better use in the smaller form.

But that's not what the iPhone is about. It's a non-compromise device, even when a little compromise might help. The lack of a touch-typist keyboard hinders data entry, but it doesn't restrict any other purpose of the device. The inclusion of those keyboards is a huge compromise for all its competitors, even though it allows those competitors to act more like little computers.

And that's where it's odd for me. The iPhone is much more like a full-blown computer than any smartphone I've used. It might be the superior browser, and the fact that a single company and design vision has ensured the maximum CPU is available for each current task, and that the interface and actions are nearly always consistent across every piece of software. Contrast that with many smartphones that don't just have ugly interfaces, crippled Web browsers, and varying input methods, but also require you to learn a different approach to using nearly every different piece of software on the phone.

Apple isn't about to kill its competitors, but they are providing an odd amount of support for killing a laptop.

On a slightly tangential front, Apple CEO Steve Jobs claim that their phone's 3G speed was nearly that of Wi-Fi requires some explanation. Jobs needed a footnote: "compared to typical Wi-Fi hotspots that have about 1.5 Mbps of downstream backhaul." The iPhone is clearly processor limited for how fast it can render Web pages and handle network processing. If you stick an iPhone on a 10 Mbps-backed network via Wi-Fi, the browsing experience isn't very different than on a 1.5 Mbps-backed Wi-Fi hotspot, in my experience with the current phone.

So clearly, there's more optimization to be done and more hardware upgrades to come in order to have a mobile device that can live up to whatever network it generally works on. For the iPhone 3G, Wi-Fi is an alternative, but it's clearly not intended as a superior alternative.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 12:37 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Gadgets, PDAs, Phones | 1 Comment

June 26, 2007

Wi-Fi Still a Missing Piece of iPhone

By Glenn Fleishman

Apple and AT&T announced the cost of a voice and "data" plan today for the iPhone, with nary a mention of Wi-Fi: Remember Wi-Fi? Remember how every demonstration of the iPhone's browsing, mapping, and email features are conducted via Wi-Fi, not the slower EDGE data service also built into an iPhone? Remember the promise of seamless EDGE-to-Wi-Fi and back roaming with no disruption in the delivery of data during that transition? Remember how goddamn slow EDGE is--about three times faster than the best analog dial-up, weighing in north of 150 Kpbs in ideal cases?

Apple and AT&T are hoping you don't quite remember that well. After you drop $500 or $600 on the iPhone, and pay $50 on up for an unlimited "data" plan--unlimited EDGE data--you're stuck high and dry without Wi-Fi hotspot access. AT&T WiFi is the company's large, managed and aggregated network with what I believe is 10,000 locations at last count: 8,000 McDonald's picked up from Wayport and 2,000 other locations (managed by Wayport), such as The UPS Store. They offer this for $2 per month to their landline DSL customers.

And no word whatsoever about how iPhone users will access Wi-Fi when not on a home or friend's network. The little High Technology page that shows wireless features of the iPhone says, "iPhone automatically finds and connects to trusted Wi-Fi networks so you can surf the Web at blazing speeds." Trusted. Huh.

Because seamless connections to hotspots require custom software--software that a third party can't install on an iPhone yet--iPhone owners who want to use hotspots will have to connect, use the browser, and login, too. You'd think they would have thought of this, given the availability of Wi-Fi on and off AT&T's own network.

Mac OS X has built-in corporate Wi-Fi networking support for 802.1X/WPA Enterprise, which allows secure access to networks protected with that standard. I don't know of any corporation that wouldn't choose to use 802.1X, as it assigns unique encryption keys to each log-in session. There's no word on support for that, either.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 12:48 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Hot Spot, PDAs, Phones | 1 Comment

« PDAs | Main Index | Archives