One of the biggest concerns as the wireless world grows is that of security of data; especially personal data. Many people do what they call war-driving to find an open WiFi network to get their emails while traveling, although this is a common practice, it is against the law. There are hacker groups and IT security conferences that people go to, where the retailer type IT people also show up and discuss these issues. The ramifications of company data falling in the hands of a competitor or snooping opportunist hacker are extremely great. Many of us take several Wireless Online Newsletters and read the white papers on the security issues as well. Indeed this is a problematic issue for companies.

I seem to recall sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot with a Starbucks next door in a strip center in my motor home and getting the Grocery Store Across the street, the gas station and a Mail Boxes Etc. Indeed I got a couple of others too, which seem to be encoded, but most were completely open, meaning I could begin surfing anytime I had felt like it. Having T-Mobile Service I logged on legally to the system as usual, but I could have easily took up free bandwidth elsewhere that day.

I believe that many people buy these OTC peripherals and Linksys type systems and then simply put them in and turn them on. I understand that one large Home Improvement Sore did this and has fixed their units, but they were wide open. Many small businesses all around are open, but probably do not care. Some purposely blast WiFi to increase customer base and do so on different separate air-gapped systems from their store operations, if you take Bitpipe online you can get the latest white papers on these things. You should sign up for online security white papers.

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There was recently a case in Florida where someone was "War Driving" to pick up WiFi signals and stopped in front of someone's house turns out he inadvertently loaded some programs and the icons ended up on the host computer as well. The police came and arrested him. In Silicon Valley this went on quite a bit, two-guys who kind of invented the idea went from company to company and did just that and then went into the company to pitch their services. Although this was good and a win/win, today the FBI High-Tech Crimes Division is all over it.

In fact one recent GAO report and several articles in Federal Computer Weekly, GovExec.com and other oversight newsletters are quite worried as over 1/3 of all government wireless networks are somewhat unsecured. I have discussed this and had a conversation with a hacker turned security computer consultant. Apparently WEP or other such encryption is not even close to secure.

My theory on all of this is to catch the International Terrorists Cells in the United States is that we get full time WiMax in every city and have an algorithm which looks for anomalies to see if you can catch those who surf all day Jihad websites, and see who they are? Now there is a thought “Reverse WiFi Hacking” to catch International Terrorists, why didn’t I think of that? Think on it.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

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