Secure wireless doesn't have to be an oxymoron
Source: ZDNet
"We never gave security a thought," Brian Chee says, talking about what was probably the world's first wireless data network. Chee worked on Aloha Net, a new concept in communications developed by the University of Hawaii back in the late 60's. This network, using a form of magic called "carrier sense multiple access," let the university link computers on each of the state's islands. Later, the technology would migrate to the wired world, and with some improvements, would be known by the name "Ethernet."
The data carried by Aloha Net eventually went to undersea cables and microwaves, Chee went on to run the university's prestigious Advanced Network Computing Laboratory, and wireless networking went on to ignore security. In fact, wireless networking ignored security for so long that most people think it still doesn't have any. In many cases, they're right. But it doesn't need to be that way.
Now that wireless communications is becoming a critical technology for the enterprise, it can't be that way. The problem is that the disconnect between the IT staff's memories of wireless networking and today's reality is sufficiently large--a factor that keeps the technology from growing as fast as it should.
