Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless, wireless, everywhere

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 16:54:19 -0400

Wireless, wireless, everywhere
By Scott Kirsner, 6/23/2003

Consumers love WiFi. Corporations loathe it.
WiFi is the nickname that's been affixed to
wireless Internet access. WiFi allows
coffee-swillers at Starbucks to go online to
update their resumes, and it allows corporados
to bring their laptops into a conference room
while staying connected. And right now, WiFi is
one of the few trends in the tech world with any
measurable momentum.

Consumers love WiFi because it lets them be
mobile. Often, it's free - as it is along Newbury
Street in Boston. But corporations loathe it
because wireless access is hard to control, and
WiFi can cause major network security
migraines.

The free WiFi movement continues to gain steam around New England, raising questions about companies that hope to charge consumers money for wireless Net access. (At Starbucks shops, T-Mobile charges by the minute for WiFi.)
In New Hampshire, the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce throws the switch today on free WiFi access in Market Square. Last week, Erik Crago, who runs a local Web development company, installed a $70 wireless antenna from Netgear inside the chamber's visitor information booth. In combination with a donated high-speed DSL connection, the setup will enable the chamber's booth to radiate free Web access throughout the center of Portsmouth - including the interior of a nearby Starbucks that hasn't yet started offering T-Mobile's fee-based WiFi access.
''We think it will help attract visitors, and help get Portsmouth back on the regional tech map,'' says Jennifer Quinlan, the chamber's business development manager.
Closer to Boston, a partnership between the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and CityKi, a company that produces kiosks to bring Internet access to urban neighborhoods, is bringing free WiFi to Roxbury's Dudley Square bus station starting next month. There will be a kiosk offering public access - and WiFi will also be available to those who are toting their own laptops or PDAs.
In Somerville, a project is underway to blanket Davis Square with free WiFi, led by the city's chief information officer, Pat McCormick, and Tech Superpowers, the same company that operates the free WiFi network on Newbury Street. And Tech Superpowers founder Michael Oh says his firm also is working on a project that will bring free WiFi to the chain of Carberry's Bakery and Coffee Houses in Central Square, Davis Square, and Arlington within the next month.
In the business world, though, WiFi is regarded with anxiety - not eagerness.
Wireless networks can offer hackers an easy entry point into a company's network, even if they're parked in a
car outside the corporate headquarters. And network administrators within big companies also worry
that employees may be setting up wireless networks in their offices - using cheap hardware like
the $70 NetGear antenna - without permission. That kind of ''rogue,'' or unofficial, WiFi network can create a big-time security hole.

''In the wireless world, it's hard to see who's connected to your network, and whether they're supposed to be there,'' says Michael Maggio, CEO of Newbury Networks. ''You'd think it was fishy if I came into your office with a long cable and plugged into your network, right? But with wireless, you might not know I was doing that.''
This week, Newbury is unveiling a system called WiFi Watchdog that allows network administrators to see who is on their wireless network, and where exactly they are, using triangulation. Little icons on a map show where various users are when they're accessing the network. An administrator can decide that access is OK for people waiting in the building's lobby, but can bar anyone sitting in the parking lot from using the network.
America Online already is using the system at its headquarters in Vienna, Va., and WiFi Watchdog also may be deployed soon at several hundred Air Force bases across the country - something Maggio says would be ''a company-making deal.'' Newbury Networks will be showing the Watchdog system later this week, at a conference called 802.11 Planet at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. (802.11 is the geekier name for WiFi.)
Also on my radar screen: a bill that had been making its way through the New Hampshire Legislature this spring, before being killed by the Senate Judiciary Committee recently, that would have made the owner of a wireless computer network responsible for securing such computer network.
That means that if you and your laptop unwittingly stumbled across someone else's WiFi network - which can happen pretty easily - you wouldn't be treated as a hacker with malicious intent.
But the bill was scotched because of the committee's concerns about ''war driving'' - people who intentionally seek out wireless networks, sometimes with the goal of breaking in.
The future for similar legislation in New Hampshire is unclear.

''It's an evolving area of law,'' says Judiciary Committee chairman Andrew Peterson.
Last year, in Texas, a computer security analyst named Stefan Puffer was put on trial for wrongful access to the WiFi network of the Harris County District Clerk. Puffer faced up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine for each of two counts of fraud even though one of his ''intrusions'' was actually a demonstration, performed in front of a Harris County official and a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, of how insecure the clerk's wireless network was. (Puffer had briefly worked for the clerk's office.)
In February, after a three-day trial in Houston federal court, a jury needed just 15 minutes to find Puffer not guilty.
A law like New Hampshire's would have prevented courts there from hearing similarly silly cases.
Segways on sidewalks: the sequel Last week, I wrote about the legislation wending its way through the Massachusetts State House that would allow the Segway Human Transporter to travel the sidewalks of the Bay State.
Never have I received such a deluge of e-mails. (Most were also sent to State Senator Jarrett Barrios, who offered up his e-mail address. Barrios cochairs the Committee on Public Safety, which is now studying the legislation.)
Robert Baart, a Bostonian who doesn't own a car, wrote, ''Are Vespas next? I enjoy the relaxed, low-stress activity of walking and don't look forward to being beeped at by someone on a Segway.''
Wallace Hodge, who describes himself as ''an unabashed supporter of the Segway,'' writes that the scooter ''could offer a nearly `fall-proof' means of transport for seniors who have less and less access to everything.''
Beth Thoenen of Belmont falls somewhere in the middle. ''Anything that cuts down on car traffic can only be a boon to the environment and to public safety,'' she writes. But she suggests that Segway riders should use bike lanes when available, and be required to go slower than 8 miles per hour on congested sidewalks, 8 mph being the current proposed speed limit in the legislation. (Which raises the question:
Would police radar guns be able to clock Segways?)
Jason Guida in Barrios's office told me that they'd received 93 e-mails in opposition to allowing the Segway on sidewalks, five in favor, and two neutrals.
Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Fast Company. He can be reached at [email-masked].

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/174/business/Wireless_wireless_everywhere+.shtml

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