Wifi Revolution

Open source software has been instrumental in the development and testing of open industry standards by providing reference implementations. Product vendors and end users rely on proven interoperable technologies when creating open standards, and the user community benefits from readily available source code that allows users to directly participate in the development of the technology.

 

To promote development of open industry standards for wireless networking, OpenSEA Alliance announced that its 802.1X supplicant, an IEEE (News - Alert) standard providing authentication in local area networks (LANs), has been accepted into the Wi-Fi Alliance's Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) test bed.

 

802.1X is used extensively in 802.11 wireless security and is a part of WPA. Currently, it is increasingly being used in wired Ethernet environments, as well. The specification provides an authentication framework enabling endpoint devices to be authenticated by a central authentication service using the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP).

 

When a client presents valid user credentials, the authentication server sends an "accepted" message to the authenticator which then grants network access to the supplicant.

 

With the acceptance of the OpenSEA supplicant, the WPA testbed will now include two open source and two commercial supplicants.

 

This is an important milestone in the development of open security standards for wireless networking and continues the momentum towards OpenSEA's goal of promoting the development and distribution of an open source 802.1X supplicant, officials said.

With the new test bed components, the Wi-Fi Alliance (News - Alert) is adopting the same open source software already used by many end users worldwide.

 

Founded in 2007, OpenSEA Alliance develops and promotes open-source offerings. It is also keen to implement each component with open standards. In addition to IT organizations, the OpenSEA Alliance is also dedicated to work with other technology vendors, government agencies, academic institutions, and individual contributors.

 

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a global non-profit industry association of hundreds of leading companies devoted to the proliferation of Wi-Fi technology across devices and market segments. With technology development, market building, and regulatory programs, the Wi-Fi Alliance has enabled widespread adoption of Wi-Fi worldwide.

 

“Strong security is critical to enterprise networks and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA2) is at the heart of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED testing for interoperability,” said Edgar Figueroa, Wi-Fi Alliance executive director, in a statement. “OpenSEA's participation in this program is instrumental in ensuring that enterprise users get the full benefit of the latest secure, interoperable wireless technology.”

 

“The Open1X Project is pleased to be selected for the Wi-Fi Alliance's WPA certification testbed,” said Matthew Gast, a board member of the OpenSEA Alliance and chief strategist at Trapeze Networks (News - Alert), in a statement.

 

In discussing the importance of developing new industry standards, Gast said that as many new types of wireless devices continue to be developed, portable reference code for wireless security will become increasingly important.

 

Back to WiFi Revolution home