Enabling wireless network freedom: wireless can open up your network to security risks, but there are ways around that.

• Author: Geer, David

Microsoft products are criticized for their insecurity, yet they are highly usable. Linux products are famed for their stability and security, but are just becoming user friendly enough to be competitive with Microsoft and there still aren't applications written for Linux for everything you can do with Windows.

With IT there is a trade off. If you want more usability, you give up some security. If you want more security, you give up usability. Though in the current climate some would beg to differ, the characteristic you absolutely can't do without if you had to choose one of the two is usability.

The Internet was created to be usable; then we started worrying about security when the issue arose.

People pay for products and services because they are useful to them. Safety becomes an issue after the product is released and the market cries out, "This thing hurt me!" or "This thing hurt somebody!" Then we worry and then we build in safety.

Cars get seat belts and airbags, harmful toys get taken off the market and technologies get secured. But secure a product beyond what the market considers acceptable constraints on its usability and you might as well sell it as a doorstop.

WIRELESS NETWORKING

There's a reason people don't set up the default security for their wireless LANs; it's too hard, too much hassle. It takes away from ease of use. Ask an Alaska business not to use insecure applications on their wireless networks and they'll probably follow your advice, until the usefulness of the application outweighs a reasonable concern over breaches that only may happen.

Their thinking in this matter is healthy, logical and not unreasonable. "If I use this application, I know I'll get a certain value out of it that I need. That's why I bought the darn thing in the first place. And, if I use it, I also run a risk and I may encounter a security breach. If I don't use it, I will avoid that one security risk, but I will also have thrown a measurable increase for my business out the window over what might have happened if I hadn't."

DON'T GIVE SECURITY THE HEAVE HO

Nobody's asking anyone to throw security out the window. But many believe usability has to come first.

Many of the most convenient and cost-effective ways for Alaska businesses to use wireless networks also present great security risks. For the sake of discussion, we will primarily be talking about the wireless local area network, the most frequently used wireless technology for wireless data...