Nobody is claiming you'll be on WPA3 tomorrow, just that it's here, and that you'll eventually migrate to it unless you never buy anything new again...

In 2018, off the top of my head I can get to 30 devices connected on WiFi at my house. VERY much a different discussion than 2004.

We're adding more and more connected devices:

Phones, tablets, desktops, laptops all typically have a short life..

Smart home devices with WiFi, well, those claim an incredible life - but I really pity anyone putting today's consumer "IoT" devices in. Those things are often out of support before you even buy them. I doubt they are lasting 10 years, and even when I do, I doubt they'll still be safe to leave in place.

TVs and TV set top boxes - this one really bugs me. I want a good quality dumb panel, because the smarts are out of date well within two years, and the TV itself should be good for way longer. TV Boxes, they go out of date too - but there cheap, so get replaced way more often.

Long story short - I think the devices we're buying today are not designed to stand the test of time. They will IMO die out or be removed from your home much faster than we all hope.

Edit addition: also, forgot to mention - I had lots of stuff that was WEP only. Much of it well after WPA2 came out. There all long gone, I expect the same will happen to the vast majority of people.

If you had to keep the door to your house unlocked for 5-10 years would you still consider it relatively short? How about if you couldn't patch your OS for the same length of time?

Being stuck with such vulnerabilities for years is only short if nothing that tech touches is of much value to you.

Such as? You had to go out of your way to find devices that both had wifi and were only WEP capable in the early 2000s.

Same song and dance as USB 1.1, USB 3, USB C, Lightning Cables (relative to iPod dock connectors), and all of our evolving standards. It sucks for a year or two and we move on.

For the purposes of WPA transitions, I’m willing to bet slick dual hand routers will support WPA2/3 split between each channel.

I turn off whatever insecure protocols exist on my router and will do the same once everything I care about can do WPA3. Getting the population at large to do the same is difficult. I’ll evangelize the benefits of switching, but the best way to loose support is to break use cases by pushing people onto something that prevents their positive device experiences.

Awesome! Point me in the direction of the firmware upgrade portal for my 15-year-old wifi printers, computers, and game machines from companies that no longer exist.

I'm not really sure how to interpret your 'Awesome!'. If it was meant snarky and if you're willing to, please have a look at the HN guidelines for comments [1]. We can then improve the quality of the discussion.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You're right. I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I forget which web site I'm posting on.

Actually, thinking a bit longer about the problem, the issue in my mind is that vendors/producers do not have an incentive to update software if you only pay for the hardware once. For them it's just a cost. It's more interesting to sell more hardware. My strategy as consumer is to go to open source for such devices. But perhaps there are better strategies.

I'm aware of Cisco having a model to pay for software updates, but this is mainly for business clients. Does anyone know other vendors that have business models, that create incentives for updating devices? Perhaps even for consumers?

I remember that in the past MacOS updates had to be purchased, but this no longer seems to be the case. Is there actually a consumer market for such business models, where hardware and (paid) software are tied together for a longer life cycle?

Well, some people with OS/2, Atari STs, and VAX mainframes are not gonna get extended WiFi security either.

Those that have newer stuff and can afford to switch to new printers and everything after 10 or 15 years, can use it tho, and those would still be tons of users (and more going forward). We moved from old wifi standards anyway (or you don't use WAP2 either?).

For most people it's just their laptops and phones (which they change every few years), printer (which is easily replaceable since the ink replacements they have to do regularly cost more than the main unit (or close) anyway), and maybe some TV or media player unit.

If it doesn't make you worry, there's nothing to do here. WPA3 gives you nothing.

I guess if WPA2 get blown apart (to the degree WEP was) there might be a market for super-low-power APs that you put on or right next to the device. Not sure that'd be enough without additional shielding.

Most WPA2 devices do support 802.1x which —depending on the crack— may help extend the lifetime.

Then, for certain networked things, such as printers, maybe we can hang a Pi-like device off of one of their physical interfaces and have a WPA3 connection, if we so desire and are willing to go through the contortions?