[WEB4LIB] RE: The Wireless Future of Library Computing

[Darryl Friesen]

> On our campus all NIC (network interface cards) addresses must be
> registered.  IP addresses are then assigned on the fly to "authorized" NIC
> addresses.  All users must login to the network and be authenticated via
> normal network logins, same as the wired connections.
>
> Bill Drew

That doesn't mean that any of it is secure.  Unless there is some form of
encryption used, anyone could walk in off the street and sniff your network
traffic (for passwords, patron information, sensitive data etc).

I won't pretend to know all that much about wireless technology (I'm a
systems geek, not a network geek) but our campus chose Cisco hardware
(including client network adapters) for our wireless because (our networks
geeks tell me) they use LEAP (some sort of encrypted authentication and
transmission standard).  The network cards are quite a bit more money than
almost any other wireless cards however.


- Darryl

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Darryl Friesen, B.Sc., Programmer/Analyst    Darryl.Friesen at usask.ca
  Education & Research Technology Services,     http://gollum.usask.ca/
  Information Technology Services Division,
  University of Saskatchewan
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes"