An article online at the Denver Post reports that a local TV channel demonstrated the lack of security in wireless neworking by showing that they could gather personal information from a traveller at Denver’s airport when it was sent unencrypted over a wireless link at an airport hot-spot.

Clearly some sensationalised reporting since it would be silly for the traveller whose information they sniffed from the air to be sending such personal information unencrypted anywhere over the internet, wireless or not.

That said, at least for hot-spots that require a username & password before you can connect (such as the T-Mobile ones in many airports and coffee shops) there is a good solution: WPA with 802.1X authentication. Both are built into Windows XP and MacOS 10.3, and can be added to Linux easily (see http://hostap.epitest.fi/). This will allow for authentication, and perhaps more importantly, encryption. When WPA2 becomes available that will further enhance the security of the connection to the access point.

Of course, that only encrypts the connection to the local access point. Once there, it is back in plain text for the rest of its journey unless some other form of encryption is in use (VPN, SSL etc).

Web email portals, such as Yahoo! Mail could help here by providing SSL access to their email portals. Yahoo does at least offer secure login to protect your username & password from sniffers (though why it is not the default puzzles me). Adding fully secure access would seem like a sensible next step. Banks and other financial institutions, as well as the checkout pages of most online stores already use this technology so it is not something that is new or unknown by end users. Longer term it would be nice to see all IP traffic being secured (in addition to the planned improvements to the security on the wireless link).

Saw a segment on TV about a website devoted to free antenna designs for wireless, including Wi-Fi. In particular, there was a design for some simple parabolic reflectors to place on the little rubber-duck antennae that are common on most home gateway/access point devices, such as my Linksys BEFW11S4 and its newer companion the SMC 2804WBRP-G.

So, if you have your access point in the corner of your home, and there are areas that are perhaps not well covered at the moment, these would make a really simple booster and for the price of a piece of card and some aluminium foil well worth trying before you invest in a second AP to improve the coverage.

Wireless Guest Access at the American University: The Register reports that the American University campus in Washington DC is now a T-Mobile hotspot, but one that is providing free access to users. Since the university already has a campus-wide WLAN of its own for use by students and staff, this new one is intended to be for guests on the campus. The deal also includes some discount rates for students and staff when using off-campus T-Mobile hotspots and cellular service.

Gateway™ 7001 A+G available: The second of the Gateway Computers wireless access points that Instant802 provided the software for is now up on the Gateway website. Also available now, for those after more in-depth info about the unit’s capabilities (including the support for guest access), is the user guide.

SBC Park in San Francisco goes Wireless: SBC Park, home of the SF Giants baseball team, has installed a wireless hotspot which will provide free access to the internet and also to the digital dugout during games. Check out the story in the San Jose Mercury News – interestingly, I could not find any mention of it on the SF Giants/SBC Park website.

Met a friend tonight for a couple of beers at the Pacific Coast Brewing pub (PCB for the locals) and noticed in the window that they had an AMD Wi-Fi Hotspot sign, and indeed are providing free wireless access. In a pub no less. Didn’t actually see anybody taking advantage of it, but I did see the hardware up near the ceiling on one of the walls: what looks like a standard issue SBC Yahoo! DSL modem, a D-Link ethernet switch/router (couldn’t see the model number from where I was sitting), and an old-style Linksys wireless box.

Amazed as I was at finding free wireless access in a pub, the next surprised me even more… not having much food at home, I stopped off at the Round Table Pizza in Marina Village here on Alameda to pick up a pizza. On their counter they had a box of handout flyers advertising wireless access through a service called wireloose. I can’t find any web presence for them, and the flyer I picked up from the counter doesn’t have any URL either. The service is not free, but you do get a coupon for a free hour during April with a purchase. Didn’t have the laptop with me tonight, but next time I’m down there with it I will try my free hour of access and see what else I can find out about this provider. Good news is that it should also be accessible from the seats outside that are next to the burrito place and the Gourmet Coffee Mill.

Well, it has launched today… the Gateway™ 7001 802.11G Wireless Access Point that we’ve been working on the software for at Instant802 Networks since the tail end of last year is up on the Gateway Computers website, and available today. Check out the link above for a slightly larger photo of the unit and for an overview of what it has to offer. There’s not much in the way of specifications for the AP itself up there at the moment – I would expect more stuff, including the product manuals and support info, to come online soon though, so keep checking back.

More Links:

• Wi-Fi Planet Article
• Network World Fusion
• Wireless Week
• eWeek
• TechNewsWorld
• Toms Networking
• InfoWorld
• The Wireless Weblog
• Internet Week
• Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine
• AVN Online
• c|net news.com
• searchNetworking.com

There seems to have been a lot of wireless news this week (either that of I just became aware of a lot of these things this week). In no particular order…

• AMD Hotspots – It seems that AMD is competing with Intel for 802.11 Hotspots. They’ve taken a different approach though and are supporting free hotspots rather than paid ones (like the Centrino branded T-Mobile hotspots.
• Asoka USA’s Powerline Wireless Access Point – An interesting combination of wireless networking technology and powerline networking which should allow people to easily extend the range of their wireless network. Only problem is the price – the wireless repeater products that are available are much cheaper than this, and will also support the 802.11g rates whereas powerline only handles 14Mbps, so is pretty much limited to 802.11b.
• Intel claims it cannot meet China’s WAPI deadline – Intel this week announced that it didn’t think it was likely to be able to meet the controversial Chinese government mandated WAPI encryption technology implementation deadline. This technology is controversial in a number of ways, but perhaps the most suspect area of it is the need for any foreign companies to work with one of a limited number of Chinese corporations, potentially exposing their IP to this partner.

Final entry for today (I am supposed to be working). I thought I’d share a snapshot of the village here at Northstar:

As you can see, the weather here is great; sun is shining and the snow is white.

Here’s a photo (taken from a little too far away perhaps) of the access point here in the Alpine Bar that is making all of this possible. The connection seems to be pretty fast – I am able to ssh into work and use my Linux box remotely quite happily. This photo also uploaded pretty quickly.

As always, click on the photo for an enlarged view (and on this one I’ve even highlighted and zoomed in on the access point).

Saturday morning, 10:30am and I am located in the Alpine Bar at Northstar taking advantage of free wireless access (SSID: NorthstarFreeHotspot) and waiting for the bar to actually open so I can get my hot chocolate.

Since I have my digital camera and upload cable with me, I might try to post some photos later on. For now, I am indoors and there is very little of any interest to capture.

On the downside, my new T-Mobile cell phone is not working in here, and had only one bar of signal outside. I guess GSM has not made it to Northstar yet.

This is such a cool story, but even more amazing is that it has a very practical application. Researchers at NEC have demonstrated a wireless networking system that can hand off a connection from one access point to the next, much like a cellular phone does, with the client moving at 205 mph past a line of access points.

OK, I said it had a practical application… the bullet train. String the APs along the trackside and you have high speed wireless connectivity for all the folks on the train. On a lighter note, I wonder if Porsche realises that their cars are in fact just low cost alternatives to the bullet train for researchers. Oh, and how about the lucky researchers who get to drive a 205mph Porsche in their daily research. Wonder how many times they had to go back out to re-check the results 🙂