Wireless

America's smallest state is seeking to become its first to offer a wireless broadband network from border to border.

Backers of Rhode Island's $20 million project say it would improve services and make the state a testing ground for new business technologies.

It also comes at a time when Rhode Island's capital of Providence is stepping up efforts to lure business from Boston, about a 50-minute drive away, in neighboring Massachusetts, where office rents are among the nation's most expensive.

Joe Lusardi's friends back in New York couldn't believe it when he told them he'd have free Internet access through this city's new Wi-Fi network.

It's free all right, but residents are, to some extent, getting what they pay for.

More than a month after St. Cloud launched what analysts say is the country's first free citywide Wi-Fi network, Lusardi and others in this 28,000-person Orlando suburb are still paying to use their own Internet service providers as dead spots and weak signals keep some residents offline and force engineers to retool the free system.

New York's Westchester County has enacted a law designed to limit identity theft by forcing local businesses to install basic security measures for any wireless network that stores customers' credit card numbers or other financial information.

The law also requires that businesses offering Internet access -- coffeehouses and hotels, for example -- post signs warning that users should have firewalls or other security measures.

The Department of Defence is reviewing policy on agency usage of unclassified wireless networks on the back of a US-led mandate.

The existing policy for Australian Defence personnel states that agencies should not use wireless communications for the transmission of classified information.

Where agencies have a requirement to transmit classified information using wireless communication, staff must use approved cryptography.

Chances are you’ve “shared” a neighbor’s wireless connection at one time or another, or discovered that your own network reaches to the laundromat next door, conveniently allowing you to work while you wash. Why not make all this sharing official? Whether you want to entice customers to your hip café or simplify life for everyone in your apartment building, it makes sense to set up a wireless hotspot. First you need to ensure that your Internet service provider (ISP) allows this kind of sharing. Many ISPs limit how you can use their least-expensive DSL or cable-modem connections.

Wojtek Felendzer held a mobile phone to his ear as he walked across the room, the call automatically switching behind the scenes from a Wi-Fi wireless hotspot to the regular cellular network.

''Can you still hear me?'' the Nokia Corp. employee asked.

''Yes,'' the reporter answered.

Google Inc.'s bid to blanket San Francisco with a free wireless Internet service cleared a major hurdle Wednesday when a city panel identified the search leader and EarthLink Inc. as the best candidates for the ambitious project.

The recommendation, completing a six-week review, allows the city to begin negotiations with Google and EarthLink, which decided to team together earlier this year after initially bidding against each other. The companies will pay to build the entire network, which is expected to cost at least $15 million.

Hack in The Box (HiTB) and its associates, Bellua Asia Pacific, will conduct a two-day, hands-on wireless security training from June 5 to 6 at the Westin Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.

The training course is part of HiTB’s “deep knowledge” series of network security trainings and will include a “war driving” session, the company said in a statement.

The course, open to 15 participants only, will not be an ordinary run-of-the-mill classroom-based training course, said Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, founder and chief executive officer of HiTB.

Recently, a reader reported being forced to disable intrusion-prevention monitoring within shared, multi-tenant locations because the wireless scanning system was generating a confusing abundance of red herrings, or “false positives,” from neighboring access points.

More evidence has emerged that Google is getting ready to blanket the U.S. with free Wi-Fi, as Business 2.0 senior writer Om Malik reported last year. Now, the company has filed for three patents related to offering wireless Internet access. Search Engine Roundtable points out that the patents all have to do with serving up advertising through a wireless Internet connection maintained by a third party, whose brand Google would include in the presentation of those ads. Sounds a lot like Google's latest plan to unwire San Francisco, where it has teamed up with EarthLink.