Hasta La Gadget!

To think it was just a few months ago that we thought taking 15 minutes to crack WPA encryption was a feat. Researchers from Kobe University in Japan are claiming they can best that by a wide margin by cracking any WPA-protected connection using the TKIP algorithm within just one minute flat. The details will be revealed at a tech conference on September 25th. Feeling paranoid? Bump up your encryption to the still-secure AES algorithm or WPA2… and if you’re just wanting to live life on the edge, consider downgrading to WEP — it’s as good as open at this point anyway.

Filed under: Wireless

WPA networks cracked in just under a minute, researchers claim originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The prospects of a Future Inevitable Internet Collapse[TM] has some of our readers seriously freaked out. You know the type — they live in places like Idaho and Montana, in fortified mountaintop retreats, where they hoard digital media like it was canned food in December 1999. And concerns over bandwidth aren’t limited to a lunatic fringe — no less august a publication than IEEE Spectrum has recently posted an article by Lawrence G. Roberts (who pretty much helped invent the modern router) in which he discusses the state of the Internet. According to Roberts, our current routers are still designed to handle much smaller amounts of data than they are currently pushing. Streaming data only works at all, he says, due to extreme over-provisioning — “Network operators,” he says, are throwing “bandwidth at a problem that really requires a computing solution.”

One possible solution is something called “flow management.” Instead of routing each packet individually, a flow router attaches an ID to each packet in a specific stream (“flow”). After the first packet is routed, each subsequent packet with the same ID is sent along the same route — cutting down on time and on the amount of lost packets. Roberts’ company, Anagran, has one such device on the market now — the FR-1000, which he says consumes one fifth the power of a comparable (traditional) router, one tenth the space, and should reduce operating costs in GB/s by a factor of ten. And this, dear readers, may be the key to the survival of the Internet — that is, until the robots get us.

Filed under: Networking

New ‘flow router’ may save the Internet from collapsing under the weight of all your v-blog posts originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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C’mon, say it with us: “phew!” Considering that just about everyone has been shipping “802.11n” wireless kit since draft 2.0 was put into play two summers ago, we couldn’t be more relieved to see the Wi-Fi Alliance confirm that it won’t change the baseline requirements of its 802.11n certification program when the format gets certified this September. Just as we’d heard, the WiFi standard will leave its stagnant draft status and sashay into the wondrous realm of officialdom in merely two months, with the updated test program to “preserve interoperability with more than 600 Wi-Fi certified 802.11n draft 2.0 products released since June 2007, while adding testing for some optional features now included in the standard.” Good thing, too — can you imagine the uproar if your forthcoming 802.11n dongle wouldn’t play nice with that draft-N router you snagged last June?

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

802.11n finalization just a formality, interoperability to be preserved originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might imagine that Cradlepoint’s feeling a bit of heat since Novatel released its fantastic MiFi series, since the whole idea behind Cradlepoint’s gear is to turn 3G modems into WiFi access points. It’s cool, though, Cradlepoint managed to find a tricky angle: you can’t charge the MiFi, use it as a USB modem, and have WiFi enabled at the same time! We still think we’d stare, point, and laugh if we were walking through an airport and saw some dude with these two cute little boxes tethered to one another, but we’ve got to admit that this is a pretty big Achilles’ heel that Cradlepoint’s managed to solve here; all it takes is a firmware update for your Cradlepoint, and voilà, you’ve now got MiFi compatibility.

Filed under: Wireless

New Cradlepoint firmware turns MiFi into — wait for it — a 3G WiFi router originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Buy.com, dubbed “The Internet Superstore,” sells the latest brands at affordable prices in categories ranging from computer hardware and software to books and sporting goods. Buy.com even goes so far as to say it has the “Lowest Prices on Earth.” In today’s TechSaver Test, we’ll see about that!

One of Buy.com’s strengths, in my opinion, is that you can make purchases using your account with Google or PayPal. That way, you can use the information you already have stored with these accounts instead of creating an account with Buy.com.

Buy.com has 33 products on sale this week. I chose four–an LG HDTV, wireless n router, iPod speakers, and Energizer LED flashlight–to see if the store’s prices are too high or just right. The results surprised me. Find out why, after the jump.