more on Good article on location vs. the network for Hotspots...

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ 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.


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