[clue-tech] WEP/WPA depend on wireless card?

[Nate Duehr]

> However I would think that anything made the last 10 years or so would 
> probably have the capabilities to support WPA.  (This might be 
> especially true now in the days of software radios, where the radio 
> hardware has essentially limitless capabilities - limited only by the 
> baseband, I think).

Actually SDRs do have limits. Quite a few of them, actually.  No laws of 
Physics have been revoked by them (yet!). :-) LOL.

Nifty tech, but still have to have front-end analog filters to limit 
down what they can hear if deployed in high RF environments ("front-end 
overload"), and there's all the usual RF design issues/trade-offs that 
have always presented themselves to RF Engineers.

The early SDR hardware was expensive.  Now fast enough A-to-D's are out 
that make receivers cheap.  But they're still not fast enough to get 
anywhere near 2.4 GHz.  Transmitters are still even more limited and 
pricey.

$500 will get you a nice lab SDR for 0-30 MHz.  No SDR's are really fast 
enough to go up into VHF+ yet.  Those are almost always hybrids that use 
a transverter to drop the received VHF+ signal down to an Intermediate 
Frequency (IF) where the SDR can sample fast enough to get all the 
information contained therein out of the signal. $1500 will get you an 
SDR with nice SWL listening software.  Often-times SDR lowers the 
hardware price for a typical application, but the software development 
price goes up DRAMATICALLY.

SDR is just another "tool in the toolbox" for an RF Engineer - and even 
then, only if they have a pretty talented software developer (or twenty) 
behind them.

Plus, just like in the wired world... the real money these days is in 
making and patenting and licensing CODECs, and many of the CODECs in use 
in RF digital systems are encumbered just like wired media CODECs.  
Usually they're priced to the point price-wise, where the creator will 
make their money selling the chips to do it, or licensing to someone 
else to program into their chip... and the CODEC creator's profit margin 
will be the same... then the company using the license in their own 
chipset has to try to keep the price down to the end-user vs. another 
product with discreet components bought in massive scale/bulk 
purchased.  Also companies like DVSI that makes the AMBE and IMBE 
VOCODER which is commonly used in Public Safety radio systems, XM 
Satellite receivers, and many others... usually require that the minimum 
number of licenses is 10,000 copies.  Which probably shuts out any 
"hobbyist" SDR code writing that isn't either based off of 
reverse-engineering of an encumbered CODEC 
(patented/trademarked/copyright all together) illegally, or requires a 
lot of ca$h.

SDR is cool, but it's a dud for anything with non-open protocols...

Nate