iPhone 3.0 OS and WiFi Security
I love my iPod Touch, but it hasn’t done any favors for my network security. Before I had the Touch, my home wireless network was secured with the WPA2 protocol and a completely random 64-character security key. Overkill? Perhaps. But I’ve got a healthy amount of paranoia when it comes to the security of my home network – especially my wireless setup.
Once I brought the iPod home and realized that I was going to have to manually key-in my 64 random character passphrase on the Touch’s virtual keyboard, I quickly dumbed-down my ultra-secure key to something that was considerably shorter. The iPod Touch (as well as the iPhone) has had no support for any sort of copy-n-paste operation so there was no choice but to manually enter it character-by-character. I just don’t have that kind of patience.
I’ve been running my network with this less-than-perfect security key for well over a year now and, while I’m pretty sure that my neighbors haven’t been running dictionary attacks against my access point, it still leaves me with that not-so-secure feeling.
That all changes today. Today, the iPhone 3.0 OS was released (a free update for iPhone users, a $9.95 fee for iPod Touch users) with support for copy-n-paste! This means I can go back to using my 64-character security key without having to suffer through the tedious process of keying it in on the Touch – as long as I can get my key onto the iPod, I can simply copy/paste it into the wifi settings. Here are the steps:
Step 1
Go to Steve Gibson’s Perfect Passwords page and generate yourself a totally random string of 64 characters. Each time you refresh this page you’ll get a completely new set of random strings guaranteed to be completely unique. This password page is actually pretty useful for all sorts of security applications – definitely one to bookmark.
Once you’ve got a string that you’re happy with, I recommend that you paste it into a text file and keep it somewhere safe. I’ve got my stored on a flash drive I’ve got squirreled away with all sorts of other important documents on it.
Step 2
Log into your router or wireless access point and update the wifi configuration to use your newly-generated key. The exact steps will vary by manufacturer so consult the appropriate documentation if you’re not sure what you’re doing.
Step 3
Now we need to get our security key onto the iPod or iPhone so that we can copy-n-paste it into the Wi-Fi Settings screen. There are probably all sorts of ways to get this key moved over to the iPod, but I’m going to use the Notes syncing feature that is new with the iPhone 3.0 OS.
Open Mail.app and create a new note that contains your security key.
Once you’ve done that, go into iTunes and make sure that you have the new “Sync notes” option checked on the Info tab for your iPod Touch or iPhone.
Press the Sync button and your new note should get copied over to the device.
Step 4
Open the Notes app on the iPhone and locate the particular note that you just synched from your computer. Tap anywhere within the body of the note and it should bring-up the new select/copy interface. Drag the selection box around your security key and tap Copy.
Step 5
The final step is to go into the Wi-Fi Settings screen and paste your security key into the Password field. Simply tapping anywhere within the Password field should surface the Paste button.
Don’t forget that you’ll need to update any other wireless devices that you have around the house (this is where that flash drive comes in handy).
So, is all of that easier than just typing the 64-character password directly into the field? I don’t know – maybe not. It did, however, give me the opportunity to play with some of the new features of the iPhone 3.0 OS and ratchet-up the security of my home network at the same time. That’s a win-win for me. Your mileage may vary.
7 Responses to “iPhone 3.0 OS and WiFi Security”
Thanks for this. Too bad iPhone can’t share the net with the Mac through the USB connection.
Is there a way for us Windoze users to copy & paste the key to an iPod Touch? Like you I’m paranoid too and run WPA-PSK security on my router. I got a Touch last night and have restored it and synced my music and apps to it. Now I want to get on the internet and one of the characters in my security key is a ` which I can’t type in on the Touch keypad.
My 3 kids have their own laptop. I have a work TabletPC and personal laptop. My wife has a laptop for home and brings her work laptop home with her sometimes. Then there’s the PocketPC, PSP, and arcade cabinets with computers in them. I’m not up to changing that key and having to re-connect all these devices just for the Touch, but it would be nice.
Joey,
So, if all you need is just to be able to type the backtick (or back-quote, or grave accent, or whatever it’s called), there is a little trick that you can use to get it. It doesn’t appear on the default virtual keyboard layout, but it does appear when you bring up the keyboard for the to/cc/bcc fields in the mail application. Bring up the mail app and compose a new message. Tap the “To:” field and then navigate to the symbols view of the virtual keyboard (first hit the “_123″ button and then the “#+=” button). You should find the backtick in the upper left.
If you insert the backtick into the “To:” field you should then be able to copy/paste it anywhere you want — including the network password field.
As for the synching question, you should be able to use the same trick that I’m using on the Mac with Windows. The only difference is that iTunes syncs with Outlook on Windows (whereas it syncs with Mail.app on the Mac). If you create a note in Outlook with your wifi password you should be able to sync it to your phone in the same way that I described above.
If you don’t have MS Outlook, I’m not sure what to do. There may be other apps that will synch with iTunes, but I’m not sure what they may be.
Good luck.
Brian
Awesome! With what you’ve just told me I think I can manage to get it working. I had thought of making a contact with the passkey as the name and after syncing copying and pasting from there but I wasn’t totally sure it would work. I’m just going to try the To field e-mail tip. I didn’t know the keyboard keys were different depending on which app you were in.
Thanks so much for replying and for telling me you did. I’ve searched Google since I got the Touch last night and your blog is the only real information I’ve found that was relevant to what I was searching for.
Bless you, bless you! I tried what seemed like a gazillion times to connect to my protected wireless network but ipod touch kept denying the connection. Finally I found your advice and copied/pasted through notes. Worked right away! Have a great holiday!
A brilliant article. So simple when someone spells it out.
i too have one of those ultra paranoid 64 character long passphraes. its a shame that apparently the airport extreme supports wifi protected setup (add network client) but the
ipod touch does not, from what i read.
another thing you can do if you run windows is save your wifi profile to the usb stick (not using notepad as a text file) and that windows connect now will automatically import your wifi passphrase into any windows 7/vista machine, or some hp printers that you stick your usb stick in
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