Steaming Cup of Access

WiFi Hotspots

Feb 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Jacqueline Emigh

Already experienced with the risks and benefits of 802.11 WiFi, government and corporate security managers are now grappling with early signs of convergence between 802.11 and other wireless systems, ranging from cellular networks to a short-range technology known as Bluetooth.

Geared to communications across distances of a few miles, WiFi has connected work-at-home and telecommuting environments as well as business and government organizations of all sizes over the past few years.

At the end of 2005, for instance, Proxim Wireless Corp., San Jose, Calif., announced that the City of Burbank, Calif., is using its WiFi equipment on a new municipal wireless network. Built by the city in conjunction with M-Gravity LLC, a Torrance, Calif.-based wireless technology specialist, Burbank’s new network features a wireless “hotspot” about one square mile in size, offering wireless Internet access to citizens.

Other government agencies with WiFi networks already in place run the gamut from the U.S. Department of Defense to the communities of Corpus Christi, Texas and Chasta, Minn. What’s the attraction? According to experts, the key advantage of WiFi networks is portability.

To hook up a laptop to either the Internet or an enterprise network, it must simply be situated near a piece of hardware known as an access point (AP). In Burbank, for example, APs have been installed on street lamps throughout the wireless hotspot, in addition to municipal buildings outside the hotspot.

Moreover, many foresee a day, not too far away, when WiFi-enabled voice communications will be as commonplace as WiFi data connections, through an emerging Internet-based technology known as voice over IP (VOIP).

On the other hand, unless properly deployed, WiFi networks are still fraught with security risks, according to other experts. Some organizations with WiFi networks have been hit hard by roving bands of hackers, sometimes known as “war drivers.”

How do wireless hackers operate? Typically, these potential intruders ride around in vans rigged up with WiFi hardware and software, trying to detect and tap into 802.11 wireless networks from the street. And all too often, they succeed.

WiFi vendors and industry groups have long worked hard on information security, but wireless experts point to a few lingering areas of vulnerability.

A couple of years ago, the WiFi industry started to replace WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol), an encryption technique known as particularly easy to break, with the much stronger AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). But although the tide is turning, WEP still holds a lot of sway.

Moreover, many WiFi users fail to replace the easy-to-crack “default” SSID (system IDs) that come with their APs with strings of characters that would be harder for interlopers to guess. As many see it, better usability might help to produce improved security. “People will only accept easy-to-use security mechanisms. Wireless technology can be a very high hurdle for many of them to get past,” says Rich DeMilo, dean of the College of Computing at Atlanta’s Georgia Institute of Technology.

At the same time, WiFi networks are now starting to come together with other wireless technologies, raising new sorts of issues. WiFi and cellular networks carry the potential to complement one another well, according to some, because at this point, these two varieties of wireless networks are tailored to different types of devices.

For the most part, WiFi is used with PCs. Michael Finneran, president of dBRN Associates, Hewlett Neck, N.Y., says that some organizations have even set up special conference rooms for connecting PC laptops to the Internet and other data networks.

In contrast, cellular networks are still almost the exclusive province of cell phones and PDAs. “You do not see too many employees trying to balance laptops in their hands as they roam down the hallways talking on the phone,” Finneran says.

Similarly, PDAs are also better suited than laptops to a variety of data entry tasks performed by mobile workers, including work carried out by soldiers in the field.

Accordingly, some technology providers — including Good Technology, Santa Clara, Calif. — have put together end-to-end managed cellular systems dedicated to safeguarding the security of PDA data.

In one recent survey conducted by Good Technology, 79 percent of the 600 decision-makers interviewed cited e-mail as the greatest security risk among applications running on mobile devices.

 

But the study’s results also pointed to needs for better security around intranet applications, data stored on mobile devices and remote access to internal networks.

 

Originally, Good Technology provided secure managed services around e-mail only, according to Dan Rudolph, the company’s director of industry solutions.

 

“But some of our customers are now expanding intranet applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) to their sales forces,” Rudolph says.

 

Other vendors — such as Blue Ridge Networks, Chantilly, Va. — offer end-to-end security products and services for both wired and wireless devices.

 

“Much of our business is made up of the Department of Defense and other federal government agencies,” says Tom Gilbert, chief technology officer at Blue Ridge.

 

When used together, cellular and WiFi networks can help make up for one another’s weaknesses, according to some experts. For example, when it comes to encryption — or the ability to disguise data by “scrambling” it — cellular technology is now way ahead of WiFi, Finneran says.

 

Yet in certain other areas, WiFi holds the edge. For instance, devices running on cellular networks do not always get great reception indoors — particularly when the user is located deep inside a building, far away from any windows.

 

Although WiFi’s transmission range is much shorter than that of cellular, 802.11’s radio signals do a much better job of cutting through walls and floors.

 

But many experts are now cautioning customers and vendors against viewing different wireless networks as separate technology “silos.”

 

The entire wireless industry will gain better security if practitioners from various disciplines come together to share information, DeMilo says.

 

Following a recently held wireless security summit, the Georgia Tech Information Security Council (GTISC) now plans to set up comprehensive research programs and a wireless security test bed for exploring these issues with all stakeholder groups.

 

Some believe that cellular providers will soon decide to “hand off” calls between cellular and WiFi, meaning that cellular calls will move to WiFi networks as soon as they come into the enterprise telephone switchboard.

 

Within the United Kingdom, British Telecom is already handing off calls between its cellular network and Bluetooth, a wireless technology some consider less secure than WiFi.

 

Operating at short range only and requiring unobstructed “line-of-sight” between machines, Bluetooth was first devised quite innocently as a way of exchanging data between PCs and peripheral devices.

 

Using Bluetooth, you might exchange contact information between a PC and a PDA, or output a document to a printer, all without the hassle of plugging in wires. At this point, however, Bluetooth is beginning to be abused by a new breed of hackers called “Bluejackers.”

 

In the “Bluejacking” exploit, now growing popular in the U.K. and other European countries, hackers pinpoint the locations of nearby Bluetooth-enabled cell phones. Then, these PDAs get zapped with annoying text messages. Fortunately, the next generation of British Telecom’s hand-off technology will combine cellular with WiFi as opposed to the more hacker-prone Bluetooth, Finneran says.

 

At the same time, some organizations are taking other approaches to bringing together WiFi with cellular.

 

For instance, to bolster security while also saving money, New York City-based Lehman Brothers took the unusual step in 2004 of buying its own cellular base station, a piece of equipment typically owned and operated by cellular carriers.

 

The investment bank then locked up all wireless APs in a secure wiring closet. Inside Lehman Brothers, WiFi and cellular signals are received by antennas. The signals are then fed to the APs in the wiring closet over the bank’s long-established wired network.

WiFi in Government Applications Student laptops access WiFi in island community

 

Students in Manteo, N.C., are now performing research for school projects on a computer, even though most of them cannot afford one.

 

Each middle-school and high-school student in Manteo, N.C., receives an IBM ThinkPad notebook pre-loaded with VitalSource educational software with the ability to access the town-wide wireless network.

 

“We are happy with how the program has gone so far,” says Steve Jozik, information technology administrator for Manteo. “Computers are being used a lot more in college. This program has allowed students to become more familiar with computers.”

 

Manteo is one of the first small towns in the United States to have 100 percent wireless coverage with a network created by Charter Communications. Last May, more than 80 middle-school and high-school students in Manteo received a wireless-enabled ThinkPad R50e notebook equipped with the VitalSource Library — including more than 3,400 works of literature, art, history, philosophy, science and mathematics, ranging from the complete works of William Shakespeare to Mark Twain.

 

“By empowering our young people with access to technology, we are giving them the tools necessary to fuel their personal development and taking steps to foster the economic development of our small town,” says John Wilson, mayor of Manteo.

 

Since the start of the program, Lenovo, New York, offered training classes focusing on notebook security and data security. The ThinkPad R50e notebooks feature the Client Security Solution, which consists of an integrated security chip and password manager software, working together to protect confidential information such as passwords, while guarding against unauthorized user access. Other security options available on select models of ThinkPad notebooks include Absolute Software’s Computrace solution, an anti-theft traceability tool, and Utimaco’s SafeGuard PrivateDisk, a hard drive encryption tool. Both tools may be purchased by customers seeking enhanced security measures for their notebook PCs.

 

This summer, Lenovo plans to hold a camp for student-and-parent training on the laptops and VitalSource. Lenovo also plans to work with the teachers in Manteo in order to incorporate the laptops into classes’ lesson plans.

 

Manteo is a community of 1,100 people and 1.7 square miles on Roanoke Island.

Relief:Lost Olympic Bid

Chicago Public and Community Organizations Relieved by Lost Olympic Bid

Author

• CIMC – AK / MS (Photo by AT)

Date Created

• 03 Oct 2009

Date Edited

• 03 Oct 2009 07:49:23 PM

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Current rating: 1

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This work licensed under a Creative Commons license <!– Chicago Public and Community Organizations Relieved by Lost Olympic Bid Anonymous Poster Anonymous Poster text/html –>

 

From the Newswire: “Throughout the…litany of news coverage on the IOC’s decision [to award the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro rather than Chicago], little attention has been given to what is arguably the majority sentiment in Chicago. When citizen opposition, polls and community organizing is taken into consideration, today’s decision is not appropriately characterized by “deep sadness.” Community leaders and organizers, as well as citizens, registered far different reactions than what was expressed by politicians and prominently echoed by U.S.-based mainstream media outlets.”

“J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Olympics Human Rights Project of Chicago, told CIMC that there were, “many issues that needed to be addressed before the Olympics. Homelessness, our transportation and educational structures are horrible. The demolition of public housing here in Chicago and nationally, there are 300,000 people a month are losing their jobs.”

“We dodged a real bullet today,” Tom Tresser exclaimed from Copenhagen via Skype to CIMC. Tresser is a long-time Chicago activist and an organizer with one of the lead opposition groups to Chicago’s bid, the coalition No Games Chicago. “This was a real wake up call to the mayor and his team who has been pushing this thing for years spending millions of dollars that should have gone to the neediest, not the greediest. This is a time to be giving more to people who are losing their homes, and instead it went to people who are planning a party that fortunately will never happen,” Tresser said.

“The final toll in terms of the city’s costs for promoting its bid for the Olympics was in upwards of $50 million dollars, including $3.1 million doled out to the powerful Hill and Knowlton public relations firm, hired three years ago by the city of Chicago to promote its bid.”

Picking it up

It is nice to keep journals. Scratch that. For me, it is vital to keep journals. Keeping track of memories, quips, daydreams, nightmares and fantasies amount to collecting another persons life. Then add in the visual components: the drawings from middle school, the photographs of geese and the lake and the pressed leaves from your first fall at college. What happens then? The only movie that you sit for plays out in your mind as you turn from one page to the other. Experiencing the reticence of the first time you were fired, reveling in the earliest acts of bravery at age seven and wrestling with yourself to close the sticky pages again is the emotion content of a blockbuster film.

We so often complain in our lives about having forgotten only to have another tell us. Often their recounting is far from kind. Still to remember means there is a need to start over again at the point where the pleasure or strife in the memory leaves off. I keep journals to also go back to the projects I could have never completed earlier in life.  Times and occasions to numerous to account for are the scribbles of sketches and tiny print of notes to one day become masterpieces. I’ve been picking it up where I left off lately and actively pursuing the leaving of where I went off into mental tail spins. The thrill of seeing that something can develop beyond your initial record into another leg of a series engenders a pride in periodic accomplishment that I had long since abandoned in a stable and focus career.

In some careers you never see anything except what you are in the middle of It is like a fish bowl effect. Not to mention in the fish bowl there is a finite amount of food which gets fought over frequently. If you are not fighting for food (i.e. the hook, line, and promotions) you are seen as a fish that is possibly in the wrong place. The reward in personal work is much more gratifying that working for another. The work flow and processes lean more to a human value  than organizational bottom-line when you are in charge of your own work. Singing the praises of managing your own work has its benefits and casualties. Right now I’m quietly whispering a refrain and gald to be happy again.

“White Queen” Phase of Diplomacy

GEORGE WILL | Enter the White Queen Phase

 Last Thursday, the president’s “engagement” with Iran began. This Wednesday, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will enter its ninth year. And U.S. foreign policy is entering a White Queen phase.

 

In “Through the Looking Glass,” Alice says she is unable to believe the White Queen’s claim to be 101. The Queen responds, “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.” Alice: “There’s no use trying, one can’t believe impossible things.” Queen: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

 

Regarding Afghanistan, the president might believe he can effect a Houdini-like escape, uninjured, from the box his words have built. Regarding Iran, he seems to believe its leaders can be talked or coerced (by economic sanctions) out of their long, costly pursuit of nuclear weapons by convincing them that such weapons do not serve Iran’s “security.”

 

On March 27, the president announced “a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” He said his “clear and focused goal” was to prevent the Taliban from toppling Afghanistan’s government, and to prevent al-Qaida from returning to Afghanistan or Pakistan. U.S. forces “will take the fight to the Taliban” in Afghanistan’s “south” and “east” but “at the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan security forces.”

 

On Aug. 17, the president reiterated his belief that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is “not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.” This was two months after he replaced the U.S. commander there with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, directing him to assess the resources required for the strategy. The general has done that. But the president does not yet want to discuss troop numbers. Why not?

 

The president’s national security adviser, Jim Jones, a former four-star Marine general, told The Washington Post that before deciding on troop levels, the focus must be on strategy: “The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources.” So, is the president reassessing his March 27 strategy? If so, why?

 

Perhaps because fraud devalued Afghanistan’s election. But it was not a sunburst of new information that President Hamid Karzai is corrupt. Or did the president believe, as only the White Queen could, that Karzai had reformed?

 

Granted, counterinsurgency — especially when it includes the nation-building implicit in McChrystal’s assessment — requires a reliable partner. But, again, Karzai was a known commodity on March 27. Besides, a presidential strategy is half-baked if its author decides it is dubious after its first collision with difficulty.

 

Regarding Iran, what did we learn when we learned about the secret nuclear facility in the tunnel? That Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons? We knew that. That Iran lies? We knew that, too. We did, however, learn something when the president, at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, went public with his knowledge of the facility.

 

On one side of the president stood France’s president. On the other side stood Britain’s prime minister, who said Iran’s behavior would “shock and anger the whole international community.” Not quite. The leaders of Russia and China were not standing with the president.

 

China has contracted to provide Iran with gasoline, a commodity that could be central to what Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls “severe” sanctions that he thinks might cause Iran to change course. Russia’s real leader, Vladimir Putin, was not even in Pittsburgh. Russia’s Potemkin president, Dmitry Medvedev, did say something that only the White Queen could believe means that Russia will participate in serious pressure on Iran: Sanctions are not “the best means of obtaining results” but “if all possibilities” are exhausted, “we could consider international sanctions.” Over to you, Queen.

 

Gates says “the only way” to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran “is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened.” But to accept that formulation requires accepting two propositions that would tax the White Queen’s powers of belief.

 

One is that possession of nuclear weapons would make Iran less secure. Question: If Saddam Hussein had possessed nuclear weapons in March 2003, would the United States have invaded Iraq? Iran’s leaders probably think they know the answer.

 

The other proposition is that Iran’s regime seeks nuclear weapons merely to enhance the nation’s security and not also for regional hegemony or the enjoyment of the enlarged status that comes from being a nuclear power. To believe that, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.

 

George Will’s e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Possible extension of jobless benefits thru Dec. 31

 

Possible extensions of jobless, health benefits eyed by administration for laid-off workers

 

October, 3, 2009 – 08:39 pm Babington, Charles – (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS) WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is considering steps to ease the burdens of laid-off American workers, including possible extensions of unemployment and health benefits, officials said Saturday.

 

The administration has stopped short of calling for a second economic stimulus package to augment the $787 billion measure approved this year. But with the jobless rate continuing to climb, President Barack Obama said Saturday he is exploring “additional options to promote job creation.”

 

Administration aides said possibilities include:

 

-extending enhanced unemployment-insurance benefits beyond Dec. 31, when they are set to expire.

 

-extending a tax credit for laid-off workers who buy health insurance through the COBRA program. That program allows workers to keep their company’s health insurance plan for 18 months after they leave their job, if they pay the premiums.

 

-extending a tax credit for first-time home buyers. This credit also is set to expire soon.

 

The administration has discussed these possibilities with congressional leaders, officials said, but no decisions have been made.

 

White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers expressed interest in these ideas in an online interview with the Atlantic magazine. “I don’t know what the term ’second stimulus package’ exactly means,” Summers said. “We certainly need to continue to support people who are in need, whether it’s unemployment insurance, or a COBRA program that for the first time provides that people who are laid off get supported in being able to maintain their health insurance.”

 

In his weekly radio and Internet video address Saturday, Obama said his proposed health care overhaul would create jobs by making small business startups more affordable. If aspiring entrepreneurs believe they can stay insured while switching jobs, he said, they will start new businesses and hire workers.

 

“I hear about it from small business owners who want to grow their companies and hire more people, but they can’t, because they can barely afford to insure the employees they have,” Obama said. “One small business owner wrote to me that health care costs are and I quote ’stifling my business growth.’ He said that the money he wanted to use for research and development, and to expand his operations, has instead been ‘thrown into the pocket of healthcare insurance carriers.’ “

 

Dismissive Republicans blamed the continuing job losses on Democratic policies and said the president’s health proposals won’t help.

 

The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 per cent in September, the highest since June 1983, as employers cut far more jobs than expected. The government reported Friday that the economy lost a net total of 263,000 jobs last month, from a downwardly revised 201,000 in August. All told, 15.1 million people are now out of work, the Labor Department said, and 7.2 million jobs have been eliminated since the recession began in December 2007.

 

Obama said he has met people “who’ve got a good idea and the expertise and determination to build it into a thriving business. But many can’t take that leap because they can’t afford to lose the health insurance they have at their current job.”

 

Small businesses create many of the nation’s jobs, Obama said, and some have the potential to become big companies.

 

Obama praised the Senate Finance Committee for crafting a health care bill that includes many of his priorities. Small businesses could buy health insurance through an exchange, he said, “where they can compare the price, quality and services of a wide variety of plans.”

 

The government would subsidize health insurance for many businesses and individuals, the president said.

 

In the weekly Republican address, Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan said the original Obama-backed economic stimulus package fell far short of its goals. She criticized a House-passed energy bill that would set limits and costs on greenhouse gas emissions. The plan, which the Senate has not taken up, “would increase electricity bills, raise gasoline prices and ship more American jobs overseas,” Miller said.

 

She called for deeper tax cuts for small businesses so the economy can get back on track.

 

“Washington Democrats’ job-killing agenda makes me think they’re living on a different planet from the families living in America’s suffering heartland,” Miller said.

 

-

 

On the Net:

 

Obama’s address: www.whitehouse.gov

 

Republican address: http://www.youtube.com/RepublicanConference

Bloomberg’s Accuracy

Just looking at the headlines, Bloomberg reported that the Labor Commission is at a loss for how the structure of jobs is breaking down. I imagine they are also at a loss for how it can build back up and repair itself. I truly am a novice in understanding economics. As far as my wisdom goes is that if you do not have money, you can not buy it. And at some point, no job means survival skills have to kick in.

I did not read the article on Bloomberg as of yet, but the headline had my mind reeling. I intentionally took a huge step back from watching CNN on a regular basis. My mind became dul and drab and the emotional bombardment and pull of the stories. CNN at one point was a bright spot on the horizon for me getting to relearn the important stories of contemporary times, versus reveling in the fodder of gaming and twittering. A lover once told me to “get with it” an learn contemporary culture. I must have been a throw back to him. Akward though he was 20 years older than me. Contemporary culture and mannerisms seem to be a constant drive to make your way through 1,000 messages a day where everything is glossed over and you are supposed to do it with rhythm. In other words, make your life into a music video.

Back to CNN. I pulled away from pop-culture news just for a moment. A moment became days and days became weeks. I was repaired and consoled in my own endeavors searching for jobs, reading, and creating. Unsolicited by me, I heard President Obama on the radio with a hip hop tune playing in the background. An announcement followed for a popular talk radio show. Obama’s comment was that more than 600,000 jobs have been lost. I gulped. I thought a plateua had been reached. I just didn’t know what was next. What chance have I, deciding to stay where I am like many Americans. Others I have heard, moved to new cities and others out of the country. Unemployment numbers, the real numbers must be staggering. Yet, from what I hear, only 10% of available jobs are advertised on electronic boards. Are there jobs, hidden ones? Networking makes a difference that I never understood.