The current problems which are being, at least partially, blamed on deceptive lending practices in the mortgage industry would suggest that many people do not actually read through the legal documents they sign when they purchase a home. Do you think that for these deceptive loans, the stack of legal documents did not contain the truth? Of course it did. It was just buried in a pile of legalese, and people simply went with what the nice broker told them.

Heh. We probably started about the same time... the first modem I purchased was a 2400 baud modem ("Prometheus" I think), and I used but never owned a 1200 baud model. 9600 was just particularly memorable because it was obsoleted *so* immediately after what was, for me, a substantial purchase.

Men with guns, usually ;-). But I agree with your point, and don't generally consider the condition of being wired sufficient access control.

I don't know that I'd say the difference is exactly fundamental. Sure, if you're talking about weaknesses a cipher, a general attack on might apply to any protocol that uses that particular algorithm. It's not just a cipher algorithm, though; getting secure key exchange right is a hard problem. You want the protocol you've selected for doing so to have been vetted by as many people for as long a time as possible. VPNs have been around for a great deal longer than these new wireless schemes, and more people have spent more time attacking them.

I simply don't see enough benefit (to having some wifi-specific scheme) to offset the risk that designing and implementing some new protocol introduces new weaknesses. In addition to that, I see that configuring your client to think your wifi adapter is a safe LAN rather than an untrusted network carries significant risk if you ever take that client to a public hotspot. Having some wifi-specific scheme makes that behavior more appealing to some people. Having your OS assume a wifi adapter is on a hostile network and the LAN is only over the VPN is by contrast much safer.

Attacks only get better, not worse. The right thing to do, IMO, is treat this as a warning. We need to stop trying to concoct schemes that are specific to wifi and just treat wireless media as untrusted. Harden the clients. Don't let them act like they're on a trusted local network until they're on your VPN. Besides getting more thoroughly vetted crypto, this leaves your road warriors in a much better position when they sign on in coffee houses, airports and hotels.

Sigh. I'm sure I'm not the only one here... I distinctly remember purchasing my first 9600bps modem. (A real Hayes, no less! I sent them a large manilla SASE and they shipped me the AT command manual for no charge.) I spent a few months mowing every lawn I could to raise the funds for it. Exactly a week after I got it installed and found a couple local BBSes I could connect to at 9600, Hayes shipped the very first 14400bps modem.

Apart from the nature and amount of labor involved in raising funds, that's been a pattern for so many equipment purchases since. That was the very first time I bought something so close to the release of the new shiny, though :-)