Fucking Nintendo, Fucking DS, and Fucking WEP

apotheos

Over the holidays we received a new wireless router to replace our WRT54G that basically never worker right even after switching to open source firmware. Now that we've got 3 MacBooks, a Wii, and 2 Nintendo DS's in the house wireless kinda sorta needs to work. I set the router up Christmas morning and left it wide open (but SSID unbroadcasted) to facilitate the ins and outs of the holiday season.

Now that I've got to secure the network, I discover that it is pretty much impossible - Nintendo only supports WEP on the DS. What crazy idiot decided this was a good idea? WEP is notoriously unsecure.

Does anyone have any solutions for integrating the DS in a secured network? (First person to recommend MAC filtering gets laughed at)

ShimSham

Do you live in an area where your megahurtz are easily stoled?

AlphaTwo

apotheos wrote:

Over the holidays we received a new wireless router to replace our WRT54G that basically never worker right even after switching to open source firmware. Now that we've got 3 MacBooks, a Wii, and 2 Nintendo DS's in the house wireless kinda sorta needs to work. I set the router up Christmas morning and left it wide open (but SSID unbroadcasted) to facilitate the ins and outs of the holiday season.

Now that I've got to secure the network, I discover that it is pretty much impossible - Nintendo only supports WEP on the DS. What crazy idiot decided this was a good idea? WEP is notoriously unsecure.

Does anyone have any solutions for integrating the DS in a secured network? (First person to recommend MAC filtering gets laughed at)

Nintendo's WiFi adapter for the DS? Then you can WPA your way.

BTW, Nintendo also learned their lesson. Wii supports both WPA and WPA2.

AbsoluteZero

MAC address filtering?

Cilla Black

At a guess, and this is with no technical knowledge whatsoever, I'd say it has something to do with the Nintendo wifi all scattered around Japan. They were talking about it a lot in the E3 2(?) years ago. A huge network of wifi specifically for the DS. It can be assumed that if this network uses WEP then Nintendo designed the DS specifically for WEP. Why it only uses that I have no idea. Maybe Japan only supported that and they didn't see any need to make US regional DSes any different?

Cymoro

AbsoluteZero wrote:

MAC address filtering?

I was going to say this exact thing. Switch to WEP and use this if you value your DSs.

edit: no mac filtering huh? hahahahahaha

edit 2: WRT54G v5 sucks balls. Mine died two weeks in. I immediately went out and got a D-Link WBR-2310. It's done so much better.

edit 3: DO NOT BROADCAST YOUR SSID FOR GODS SAKE. Just enter all of the router information manually, it's much more secure.

AbsoluteZero

Maybe they thought Wired Equivalent sounded good enough.

Foreverender

apotheos wrote:

(First person to recommend MAC filtering gets laughed at)

I'm not quite sure what this all means. We have wireless, and it's password protected and that's what our Wii and my DS connects to.

AbsoluteZero

Forever Zero wrote:

apotheos wrote:

(First person to recommend MAC filtering gets laughed at)

Hooray! I'm helping!

Daedalus

ShimSham wrote:

Do you live in an area where your megahurtz are easily stoled?

Are you being needlessly paranoid? I, for one, just broadcast my sssid and run completely unsecured. If I need to move data in a way that shouldn't be intercepted, I move it over an encrypted protocol (ssh, sftp, whatever).

Viscountalpha

apotheos wrote:

Over the holidays we received a new wireless router to replace our WRT54G that basically never worker right even after switching to open source firmware. Now that we've got 3 MacBooks, a Wii, and 2 Nintendo DS's in the house wireless kinda sorta needs to work. I set the router up Christmas morning and left it wide open (but SSID unbroadcasted) to facilitate the ins and outs of the holiday season.

Now that I've got to secure the network, I discover that it is pretty much impossible - Nintendo only supports WEP on the DS. What crazy idiot decided this was a good idea? WEP is notoriously unsecure.

Does anyone have any solutions for integrating the DS in a secured network? (First person to recommend MAC filtering gets laughed at)

I'm one of those people who have an unsecure Wifi connection but I know the range on this older wrt54g isn't really sufficient except for nearby neighbors and maybe parked cars in the nearby area. It starts to break stuff like my DS the downstairs computer hooked up by wifi.

I know, I Know-- Some one could packet sniff or be in my networkz stealing my datas. My SSID is TITSorGTFO though so atleast if you see that SSID, a person might be amused.

skace

Why would you laugh at one of the only plausible setups for your scenario.

AbsoluteZero

skace wrote:

Why would you laugh at one of the only plausible setups for your scenario.

Because MAC addresses can be spoofed, if you wanted to steal internets that badly.

smallmouth

You can also limit the number of IPs assigned by your router.

Not that it's a big help.

skace

AbsoluteZero wrote:

skace wrote:

Why would you laugh at one of the only plausible setups for your scenario.

Because MAC addresses can be spoofed, if you wanted to steal internets that badly.

Yea but, how often are you dealing with people cracking your WEP and spoofing mac addresses?

Edit: My wifi is only mac address protected, no encryption.

apotheos

AbsoluteZero wrote:

MAC address filtering?

Ha hahahahahahahahaha!

To explain:

WEP can be cracked in a few minutes.
MAC filtering takes seconds.

Viscountalpha

skace wrote:

AbsoluteZero wrote:

skace wrote:

Why would you laugh at one of the only plausible setups for your scenario.

Because MAC addresses can be spoofed, if you wanted to steal internets that badly.

Yea but, how often are you dealing with people cracking your WEP and spoofing mac addresses?

Edit: My wifi is only mac address protected, no encryption.

Wifi security is really a joke. It is mostly a deturrant then an actual security scheme. Once you run Wifi, You are unprotected. You can detur them for five to ten to fourty minutes which makes it inconvient for them but anyone could eventually break in.

I figure this, If some poor person in my neighborhood doesn't have internets and I have plenty to go around why not really?

Krell

As someone else said, the Nintendo WiFi USB connector is probably your best option for the DS. It runs at around $30 CAN I think, and that way you can keep your network as secure as you want it.

ShimSham

The Warlock wrote:

ShimSham wrote:

Do you live in an area where your megahurtz are easily stoled?

Are you being needlessly paranoid? I, for one, just broadcast my sssid and run completely unsecured. If I need to move data in a way that shouldn't be intercepted, I move it over an encrypted protocol (ssh, sftp, whatever).

That's what I do. But that's because I know my neighbors well and there's no one else that can really get close enough to my signal without me noticing because they'd have to be sitting in my yard.

I know some people probably really do need good security.

Cymoro

apotheos wrote:

AbsoluteZero wrote:

MAC address filtering?

Ha hahahahahahahahaha!

To explain:

WEP can be cracked in a few minutes.
MAC filtering takes seconds.

Dude, look above, two other methods were suggested besides those. However, the DS is WEP or nothing so you're fucked on that end unless you get a dongle.

Cilla Black

I've got a friend who likes to go around and find wifi scattered around my hometown when he's bored and change various things in the information to amusing names like ICheatOnMyWife or HelpI'mLockedInTheBasement. Not incredibly relevant to this, but does tell you how easy it generally is tap into a normal wifi connection.

AbsoluteZero

Cymoro wrote:

apotheos wrote:

AbsoluteZero wrote:

MAC address filtering?

Ha hahahahahahahahaha!

To explain:

WEP can be cracked in a few minutes.
MAC filtering takes seconds.

Dude, look above, two other methods were suggested besides those. However, the DS is WEP or nothing so you're fucked on that end unless you get a dongle.

Ha HA, dongle.

If you still have that WRT54G laying around, perhaps you could set it up just for the DS to use? Or does that router not work at all?

skace

Zilla84 wrote:

I've got a friend who likes to go around and find wifi scattered around my hometown when he's bored and change various things in the information to amusing names like ICheatOnMyWife or HelpI'mLockedInTheBasement. Not incredibly relevant to this, but does tell you how easy it generally is tap into a normal wifi connection.

That is because "normal" wifi connections don't even have mac filtering or anything enabled. They are straight out of the box wide open networks being broadcasted on default channels for anyone to connect to. Given the sheer wealth of these, the second you put WEP/MAC filtering on yours, you become barely worth getting into above the wealth of completely unprotected ones. Unless, the data you are transmitting is so critical that it can't be risked, in which case Wifi should be reconsidered wholesale.

NailbunnyPD

apotheos wrote:

(First person to recommend MAC filtering gets laughed at)

Or should we laugh at you?

Since I don't use my Wifi for anything that doesn't have its own security and encryption, I only use MAC filtering.

area

There are things that people have written that let the DS use WPA, but I have no idea how well it is implemented, and it requires hardware that you probably don't have.

Not terribly helpful, but it's another option.

apotheos

area wrote:

There are things that people have written that let the DS use WPA, but I have no idea how well it is implemented, and it requires hardware that you probably don't have.

Not terribly helpful, but it's another option.

Well its good to see the flexibility exists for a possible future Nintendo patch.

I'm not worried at all about people stealing my data. I'm concerned with people using my bandwidth for untoward purposes.

AbsoluteZero

apotheos wrote:

area wrote:

There are things that people have written that let the DS use WPA, but I have no idea how well it is implemented, and it requires hardware that you probably don't have.

Not terribly helpful, but it's another option.

Well its good to see the flexibility exists for a possible future Nintendo patch.

I'm not worried at all about people stealing my data. I'm concerned with people using my bandwidth for untoward purposes.

I say go Dongle. You could simply unplug it whenever you aren't using it.

DevoutlyApathetic

apotheos wrote:

area wrote:

There are things that people have written that let the DS use WPA, but I have no idea how well it is implemented, and it requires hardware that you probably don't have.

Not terribly helpful, but it's another option.

Well its good to see the flexibility exists for a possible future Nintendo patch.

I'm not worried at all about people stealing my data. I'm concerned with people using my bandwidth for untoward purposes.

If that is your concern are there other, unprotected sources of Wi-fi near you? Even throwing WEP on yours will stop a majority of the people who would leech off you. From what I've heard even putting WPA on isn't going to stop the dedicated.

Daedalus

apotheos wrote:

area wrote:

There are things that people have written that let the DS use WPA, but I have no idea how well it is implemented, and it requires hardware that you probably don't have.

Not terribly helpful, but it's another option.

Well its good to see the flexibility exists for a possible future Nintendo patch.

I'm not worried at all about people stealing my data. I'm concerned with people using my bandwidth for untoward purposes.

Well, then I guess we're back to the WiFi USB connector. It's going to cost extra, but it will only connect to a DS or Wii.

Unless you're worried about somebody else using their DS to steal your bandwidth for untoward purposes, in which case I think you're SOL.

Caswynben

Maybe I am wrong, but I thought with MAC Address Filtering you need to know the MAC Addresses that are allowed on the network. That is some pretty good guessing in seconds.

NickTheNewbie

Are there talks of DS firmware upgrades? It would be handy to deal with this issue, and get rid of the annoying thing with the DS shutting down whenever you leave pictochat or download.

DevoutlyApathetic

Caswynben wrote:

Maybe I am wrong, but I thought with MAC Address Filtering you need to know the MAC Addresses that are allowed on the network. That is some pretty good guessing in seconds.

So you think that by requiring a device to send the MAC address to the router before the router will accept any other traffic from it is a good idea? If the router receives the MAC address so does anybody who is packet sniffing. They could have at least made this difficult by encrypting the MAC address but they didn't so MAC filtering is pretty much worthless as a security measure.

jclast

NickTheNewbie wrote:

Are there talks of DS firmware upgrades? It would be handy to deal with this issue, and get rid of the annoying thing with the DS shutting down whenever you leave pictochat or download.

Doesn't it shut down because it's unloaded the initial menu screen from memory so that Pictochat or Download Play have enough memory to perform? Just like starting up a game?

wasted life

Caswynben wrote:

Maybe I am wrong, but I thought with MAC Address Filtering you need to know the MAC Addresses that are allowed on the network. That is some pretty good guessing in seconds.

There is tons of wireless monitoring software that can check the MAC address information being sent in packets.

Even if you turn off SSID, enable WEP, and use MAC filtering, the network can be hacked pretty easily:

-First, good software can listen for packets and find the network, even if SSID is not implemented. This helps it find the network.

-Then, over time, WEP repeats itself, which can make it pretty easily decrypted. I've heard the record for breaking WEP is something like 8 minutes.

-After discovering the WEP key, and decrypting the packets being sent, the software can then find the SSID and MAC address information.

-Just clone the MAC address on the wireless card(usually very easy) and then enter the SSID and WEP key. Now you have full access to the network.

However, that is a lot more work than most people will go through. But, someone with determination can do this pretty quickly(normally within 30 minutes, depending on the amount of wireless traffic).

In conclusion, WEP sucks, but if you want your DS online, you either need to deal with it or get the dongle. If you have a Buffalo router and can use the Buffalo Client Manager on your PCs, you can use AOSS when the patch comes for the Wii. This will supposedly switch to WEP when your DS goes online, then back to WPA when it is offline. I believe AOSS may be compatible with Linksys' SES now as well. I think you said you had MacBooks so this will probably not work, as buffalo does not have Mac AOSS software.

apotheos

Yeah we're all Macs at my house now. So the dongle isn't even an option.

Seems like when you use wireless you're pretty much leaving your pants around your ankles.

AlphaTwo

apotheos wrote:

Yeah we're all Macs at my house now. So the dongle isn't even an option.

Seems like when you use wireless you're pretty much leaving your pants around your ankles.

The use Apple Airport?

http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message?board.id=tech_questions_wifi&message.id=54107

YesNoMu

The best I can suggest is disabling the WPA when you want to play a DS game online, and then bringing it back up. Not ideal by any means, though.

TheBosZ

Um... can't you just add a second access point on a subnet, set that to WEP and strictly control what gets to happen on that subnet?

jonxp

...and WPA is vulnerable to dictionary attacks. A good rainbow table, a shorter than 20 character key, and you have the network cracked in minutes.

If you're paranoid enough to care, you shouldn't be using wireless. It's like locks on a car...a real thief can get past them easily, but it's there to keep honest people honest.

My best suggestion for DS compatibility and general security WEP and SSID turned off. Just MAC filtering is OK, but it leaves your network open to simple packet sniffing (as info isn't encrypted over the air).

Chris FOM

Just out of curiosity, how many unsecured networks are visible? You don't have to have bullet-proof security, you just have to make yourself more trouble than the networks around you. By and large turning off your SSID and enabling WEP makes hacking your network more trouble than it's worth and they'll go after an easier target.

halkun

I think you are being a bit paranoid....

I live in an apartment comlpex and keep mine open as a courtesy to others. I've had mine open for a good three months now and after checking the logs I have discovered no one has even bothered to log in.

I also have a bandwith moniter, so if a neighbor starts sucking down the torrents, the MAC address goes into the trash can.

What makes you think your Megahurtz are going to get stoled so badly?