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more on Good article on location vs. the network for Hotspots...
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:52:44 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: boris <boris () levendis com> Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:27:29 -0400 To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] more on Good article on location vs. the network for Hotspots... Hello Mr. Farber, all. Two comments: one about Hotspots/wISPs business model and the other about security when using Hotspots. Insofar as the entire business model is concerned, there is a real "threat" posed to it by businesses/locations offering free HotSpot WiFi access. I don't need to go into details but one can easily see that with the proliferation of free access, it becomes something that is simply expected. Smaller cafes, for example, in an effort to recoup business from the Starbucks across the street start installing low-cost consumer-level A.P.s (apparently we are seeing an influx of extremely low-cost Taiwanese non-WiFi certified wireless access points flooding the market... Fear!!). Because they leave it open and free, they incur not the associated cost of user accounting, authentication etc. Already, the big wISPs are seeing slower growth than anticipated. I can't honestly say I see them doing all that well. I see the satellite cellphone scenario happening again. Then there is the security issue. Much ado has been made about WEP and it's weakness etc, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Right now, any laptop sitting in a Hotspot with filesharing enabled is wide open. I've seen it, repeatedly, in cafes and airport lounges. The major hardware manufacturers (Cisco, Proxim, etc) have not addressed this rather easy-to-fix issue. Only one manufacturer that I know of offers WiFi A.P.s which restrict wireless traffic to the Access Point/Client Radio "connection". In the meantime, Hotspot users should make sure of a few things, depending on their level of paranoia: 1- turn off filesharing!! 2- run a personal Firewall. 3- make sure all email transactions are encrypted (either via SSL conenctions to their mail servers or using PGP) 4- If at all possible, immediately establish a VPN to a trusted VPN terminal (which at this point only corporate travelers and hard core geeks have access to.. Though there are now starting to be VPN account services being offered on a monthly payment basis. http://findvpn.com/ How many people do you know who will fork out $10/month for HotSpot access and then another $10/month for VPN termination? Not enough to sustain an industry, surely.) Note: I currently work for the aforementioned nameless WiFi hardware maker. I withhold the name for I am not here to sell anything. :) Thank you for your attention. And this list! Boris Anthony. ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Good article on location vs. the network for Hotspots... Dave Farber (Apr 11)