Comment 16 for bug 154549

I can confirm this on my Dell Vostro 1500. Some things happen:
*I can't use sudo
*I can't start most programs (e.g. gnome-terminal refuses to run, but say gnome calculator works). If the program is already running, it seems to be fine.
*The hardware wifi killswitch does absolutely nothing. If the wireless card was on, it doesn't turn off the card, even though it normally does.
*NM still reports a connection, but says the connection quality is 0%.

If it helps, I'm also running the NVidia binary driver.
michael@northbound:~$ lspci | grep -i wireless
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)