$718K penalty against M.C. Dean for blocking Wi-Fi devices (2015)

Re:$718K penalty against M.C. Dean for blocking Wi-Fi device... by Sephr on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @03:13AM (#13316562)

This wouldn't be an issue if WiFi APs enabled IEEE 802.11w-2009 protected management frames by default. Most consumer routers have supported this for years, but have it disabled by default.

Android's built-in hotspot functionality still doesn't support this at all, and hotspots are the main thing here being targeted by hotels. If you want to see this fixed in Android, consider starring this issue: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=197440

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Re:$718K penalty against M.C. Dean for blocking Wi-Fi device... by vlan0 on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @11:04AM (#13319350)

I have not had much success implementing 802.11w. Either the wireless manufacturer or the client device implementation tends to be buggy. My most recent case is between Extreme Network 802.11ac APs and any MacBook Pro.

It's left me scratching my head as to why a protection mechanism such as this isn't mandatory by now. Because mandating aspects of the protocol seems to be the only sure way of easing compatibility woes.

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Re:$718K penalty against M.C. Dean for blocking Wi-Fi device... by cesarb on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @01:29PM (#13320769)

I just read somewhere that 802.11w is mandatory for the Wi-Fi Alliance 802.11ac certification. If true, the compatibility should get better.

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Re:$718K penalty against M.C. Dean for blocking Wi-Fi device... by eb0la on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @03:33AM (#13316639)

Totally agree.

This kind of attack is really easy to make just by setting up a wireless network with the ssid you want to block and starting wireless containment countermeasures for rogue ap detection.

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