Powerline adapters

[Anthony de Boer]

Giles Orr wrote:
> On 10 September 2012 11:38, William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > Anyone here using "Powerline" adapters?
> 
> They've always fascinated me, but the impression I've had is that
> performance doesn't exactly match the ads.

I've pinged across such a link and watched the RTTs randomly walking
past 2000 ms and back.  Colour me severely unimpressed.  Certainly you're
not going to be enjoying streaming anything across that.

> Another thing to keep in mind is that in a shared house or apartment
> building, your network traffic could be sniffed.  (Let me know if I'm
> wrong, but I don't think these systems have any encryption.)

There's crypto, and each device has a key generate/exchange button
that you have to press within a limited time-window of each other
(long enough to walk to the other end of the link, at least).

There's in principle absolutely nothing to stop another device from
joining the key-exchange party.  Though a stock device would want its
button pressed at party time, a hacked device might just constantly watch
for an opportunity.

-- 
Anthony de Boer
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