Security issues surrounding wireless networking can be addressed without upgrading hardware, Intel said today. The future ubiquity of wireless networking has been a key theme of the IDF this week, with much talk of a mobile computing future where laptop . . .
Security issues surrounding wireless networking can be addressed without upgrading hardware, Intel said today. The future ubiquity of wireless networking has been a key theme of the IDF this week, with much talk of a mobile computing future where laptop computers automatically select the best connection via either a wireless LAN or high-speed mobile network.

This is an attractive vision but there's serious concerns that recently released tools, such as Airsnort, will expose the insecurity of wireless networks, particularly since the security of installed networks has repeatedly been described to us as "flaky".

Encryption experts, among them Adi Shamir, the co-inventor of RSA, have highlighted cryptographic weaknesses in the WEP (Wired Equivalent Protocol) security that ships with 802.11b. Best practice calls for the use of virtual private networking techniques to encrypt data flowing over wireless Lans but this is often not followed.

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