On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 14:35:41 GMT, David Taylor <djtaylor@bigfoot.com>
wrote:

>> why were they wasting their time and your money on that. WPA etc were
>> invented precisely because WEP is known to be weak.
>
>Possibly because the vast majority of wireless LANs still run either WEP
>or no encryption.
>
>David.

The original question was, "- Are my phone conversations secure over
these connections? ... and referred to "all practical purposes".....

The easy answer which everybody seems to agree - is that nothing is
secure. Why?... because if information exists ( even for an
infintesimal amount of time, and even with the strongest encryption)
and it is possible to read the data stream, then the message
(conversation in this case) can be considered insecure.

But, lets's consider the qualifier, "all practical purposes".

What is the risk? If the contents of Fort Knox were housed in an old
dusty anonymous warehouse, which nobody knew about, then it would be
100% secure. Nobody would know about it so there would be no threat
and no risk.

If Steve's telephone conversations are similarly "dusty" and
"anonymopus"... lets say boring, then likewise, they are practically
secure because they will be of no interest to anyone, and even if
somebody happenned to overhear, the conversation would need to be of
interest to the eavesdropper to even begin to carry the threat of any
potential adverse consequence.

From a technical point of view, "WiFi" transmissions carrying VOIP
are far more secure than conventional analogue phone traffic. Even
with the proliferation of sophisticated consumer electronics,
eavesdropping on digitised sound is not simple. Specific packets have
to be captured then the contents have to be reassembled and using
appropriate codecs, have to be converted back to analogue. With the
addition of digital encryption the evesdropping process, especially if
carried out in real time, is impractical even if possible.
Consider that the WiFi eavesdropper also needs to be within reception
range and his task becomes even more difficult.

Finally, If Steve's conversations are highly confidential then he
would not be asking this question here.

My answer to " ..are MY phone conversations secure over these
connections?"..." for all practical purposes", ... .YES