Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Brian,
The reports of some people involving ver. A were simply anecdotal, unconfirmed reports that seemed to point in one direction when other things were ignored. If anyone can take anything from the report I hope it is that there are many things that can manifest the same way as an attack that are in fact not related. Go to the report and search for "buffer" to see one of these problems described.
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I grant you this was hardly the only issue. However, those initial reports were enough for me to have both versions of the D-Link AP and compare them. I am persistent and that's a mere $200 to get 2 units to test (nothing I found pointed to the issue). Besides off season events do not get a spare parts kit. So the worst case was I had spare radios to offer in case something went down at the off season events. Besides I was testing my tiny oscilloscopes at off season events and they were on the power into the radio so if something had happened (and it didn't) I could offer a replacement as compensation. When I finished testing my oscilloscopes I merely gave some new 1522 AP away in trade for samples of misbehaving APs.
Obviously I didn't spend all that time and money to build those little oscilloscopes because I thought FIRST merely had AP issues (though I admit that while I knew and still know more ways someone could interfere with the wireless I never thought anyone would be that devious or in this case so easily caught).
Still it leaves it out in the open that at some point, perhaps multiple times, someone tested that exploit before they tried to demonstrate it. Additionally, I do agree with what you seem to conclude that this person didn't intend to rig the rankings. Surely this particular tampering is not the only issue and focusing on it too much distracts from the bigger issues we all must face from it. I'm not sure we'll ever know the full extent of what happened without adequate logs.