Tag: Wi-Fi

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iOS 12: Wi-Fi Bug

I encountered a similar bug in iOS 10 when the iPhone was having trouble activating Wi-Fi right waking up. The issue persisted after clean install iOS and restoring from backup. Obviously the bug persisted in the backup itself, both in iTunes and iCloud. Restoring and setting up the iPhone as new device would definitely eliminated the problem; but it did not fix the bug.

I filed bug report and Apple Engineering team asked me to send diagnostic data of my phone. Subsequently, this particular bug was fixed.

A similar bug was introduced in iOS 12 beta 7 where the iPhone became unresponsive. Shortly after, Apple released iOS 12 beta 8 and the Wi-Fi bug became prominent. The behavior can be reproduced by turning off and turning on the iPhone. After unlocking the iPhone, Wi-Fi would not activate. This bug also present when iPhone lost Wi-Fi connection.

The bug still persists after reseting the iPhone, installing iOS 12 and restoring from the iCloud or iTunes backup. The bug is not present when the iPhone is set up as a new device.

Setting up the iPhone as new device means losing a lot of data that lives only in the iPhone backup.

 

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WPA2 Wi-Fi Vulnerability

This just in.

From BleepingComputer:

Mathy Vanhoef, a researcher from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), has discovered a severe flaw in the Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) protocol that secures all modern protected Wi-Fi networks.

The flaw affects the WPA2 protocol itself and is not specific to any software or hardware product.

Vanhoef has named his attack KRACK, which stands for Key Reinstallation Attack.

Yikes!

Also from BleepingComputer:

List of Firmware & Driver Updates for KRACK WPA2 Vulnerability

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AirPort Base Station Firmware Update 7.6.4

Apple has released AirPort Base Station Firmware Update 7.6.4.

This update is available for all Apple 802.11n Wi-Fi base stations including AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time Capsule. It contains fixes that:

  • Resolve an issue that may cause AirPort Time Capsule to report that the backup disk is in use
  • Resolve an issue that may cause an IPv6 Tunnel error
  • Resolve an issue that may intermittently cause a loss in Wi-Fi connectivity with iOS devices

Note: This firmware update is for all 802.11n AirPort base stations.

One of the Time Capsule I have been using was having issues with some iOS devices. I hope this update would fix the issue.

AirPort Update

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Starbucks Team Up With Google For Wi-Fi Hotspot

It is official, Starbucks team up with Google to provide Wi-Fi hotspot.

The good news is that Google should be able to provide better Wi-Fi hotspot, especially in cities where Google Fiber are available; that’s Kansas City for now, Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah are next.

The other good news is that Google gets to collect more info on the users.

IMG_3739

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A Fool, Indeed.

The Motley Fool’s Evan Niu talked about the upcoming Macs that likely support  802.11ac Wi-Fi that offers theoretical maximum speed of 1000 Mbps.

From the article with link-bait title “Why Apple’s Upcoming Macs Will Go to Waste”:

That speed capability will go to waste, as the average American’s Internet speed is approximately 6 Mbps, according to Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG  ) estimates.

Apparently Niu does not understand how Wi-Fi or Networking works in general. The 802.11g Wi-Fi standard offers theoretical maximum speed of 54 Mbps. That’s 9 times the said average American Internet speed. The 802.11n Wi-Fi has theoretical maximum speed of 300 Mbps; it is also a waste based on Niu’s non-logic. Niu might as well call all computers with Wi-Fi today have gone all to waste. That’s not counting ones 100 Mbps and Gigabit Ethernet.

Hey Evan, do you know that there’s such thing called Local Area Network?

Evan Niu is indeed a fool if not also stupid.

It is pretty obvious that Niu is trolling for page-hits by adding “Mac” in his article.

Here’s a link to the cached version of the article.

Evan Niu is a Stupid Fool

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Network Blackout Survival Kit

Armed with a Nexus One and a MacBook Pro, I was able to bring Internet connection back to the office earlier today. On Thursday, we lost both Internet and phone service. We have contacted our service provider to resolve the issue. Both Internet and phone were still down on Friday. So I used my Nexus One to create Wi-Fi hotspot and connected my MacBook Pro to it. Then I shared the Internet Connection from the Wi-Fi through the Ethernet to the office router. We managed to survive the day.

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The need for bandwidth diet.

How can I survive for the next 27 days with 344 MB of cellular data? This is what happened to me for watching the Mars Rover Curiosity landing broadcast on the cellular data instead of Wi-Fi.