Question about the terms "encypt" and "secure"

[smb at cs.columbia.edu (Steven M. Bellovin)]

On Sun, 05 Mar 2006 12:35:23 -0500
"William L. Anderson" <band at acm.org> wrote:

> Today's NYTimes has an article about "piggybacking" on open wireless
> networks and what some people think about it and what some are doing
> about it. The link is:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/technology/05wireless.html
> (subscription may be req'd)
>
> One question popped up for me when I read the following sentence:
>
> "For the Brodeurs in Los Angeles, a close reading of their network's
> manual helped them to finally encrypt their network."
>
> My question is whether it's more accurate to say "secure their network"
> rather than "encrypt". I'm not clear myself about the meaning of these
> terms; I think of encryption as being one way to make a network secure.
>
> And if there is a substantive difference in these terms, then I'd like
> to understand it. I believe that a better understanding of security
> would help ordinary users take more secure actions. I'm an optimist.
I suspect that in general you're right, but in this case they really
meant "encrypt" -- turn on WEP to secure the net.


                --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb