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On Thursday 01 April 2004 07:44 am, wchast@utilpart.com wrote:
> > Not trying to start a flame war, but I'm curious, are you saying that
> > not taking advantage of WiFi is detrimental. Sort of like not using
> > cable and only stick to dialup?
>
> No not really, but I am giving some examples that we have to deal with,
> I work for a company that does mobile work force management and by
> the very nature of the way the product works (there is a piece that
> runs in a MDT (hardened laptop) in the service vehicle that the service
> person uses. At the start of the work day the service people pick up
> the work orders and other work related data, up until the past year
> the bandwidth available over the wide area networks was that of CDPD
> (19k2 over the air and 14k4 best thruput to the user) so most of them
> would have the service people pick up the downloads at service centers
> or through some other high speed mechanisim at the service center.
> Most of them went to WiFi so the techs (service people) would not
> have to pull the mdt out of the vehicle but some would not even though
> the means were there to make it quite secure. That forced a level of
> additional work and wasted time on the service people as they hade to
> remove the mdt from the vehicle take it into a service center and down
> load the work. Then in the evening that had to upload all of the data
> that was not sent over the WAN while out on the road in order to
> conserve bandwidth.
Big pain in the butt!
> We had one customer have a big internal fight between the network admin
> who did not want WiFi and the radio guys along with the service people
> who wanted to put it in the service centers. They did a pilot and were
> able to place the antennas such that the only area they had connectivity
> was at the service dock, the equipment yard (full of the kinds of
> hardware you find at any electric utility, BIG equipment) extended so far
> as to make receiving the signal from the antennas impossible even with a
> high gain antenna, but the admin was adamit that he was not allowing
> WiFi, even after they demoed the addiition security and the inability to
> copy it from the outside. They then did a little test to see how much
> longer it was taking the techs to load the machines off of 10baseT
> connections and then get going and the difference was about 30
> minutes/tech. Needless to say at that point management stepped in and
> said YOU WILL USE WiFi. And management was very very critical of the
> security issue also but once they saw that it could be made to do what
> was needed with the security they needed, and they saw how much time the
> techs were loosing doing the docking thing they changed their minds.
Yep, I can see that come down. I'd like to have a wireless solution there
too. At that place I would have _at_least_ arranged for some high speed
cables to reach into the trucks and let them do it fast. Hell, if it was
doable you could have given each guy a CD every day. Would have also been
cheaper and faster.
I don't know the layout of the service dock but it cannot be That hard to
come up with a safe way to transfer that data.
There are also various methods available which does not have that much range
or is directional and is still cheap. Look at GPS, those antennas are cheap
to make and can be used in a not too but plenty directional way to limit
accessability.
Remember the inductive networks? You pulled a cable along the wall and you
had wireless access in that room. Bandwidth was petty, but I liked the
simplicity (at the time).
> Again you have to weigh your options and see what you are willing to
> do in order to use it. I agree that I do not want people poking around
> in my network so I have one, but I have it behind a firewall and turn
> it off when it is not in use. I also use a VPN through it, and my home
> is about 400 feet from the street. I have gone out and checked with a
> 21 db gain antenna to see if I can get enough juice on the street to
> be copiable, and it just is not there. The only way they might get to
> me would be from the river, but that would be sort of obvious.
>
> So I put up with having to go and turn the thing on set up a vpn and
> then I can use it, but it is handy because I can move around the house
> and do my work with the laptop where ever I want within reason, I can
> not go to the neighbors and the far end of the property with it as
> I have seen some people do (chee are they walking around with a hit
> me sign on them or not??) but it does what I need it to do without
> having to run wires (I hate fibreglass insulation with a passion,
> not only does it make me itch it also makes me sneeze and feel like
> I have a bad head cold) through the attic and down the walls.
Yeah, I hate that stuff. I think California has changed the laws so you
cannot use glasfiber in any new buildings.
> In your environment you do what makes you feel comfortable, if the
> level of comfort with WiFi is not good for you and you do not want to
> go through the hassel of doing all the other stuff to get that comfort
> level, you run wires. I was going to do that but the last trip up in
> the attic gave me a really bad reaction and at that point I decided
> that I would go the WiFi route, and do the security stuff to keep it
> clean. The WiFi box is also on DMZ off of my cable router device.
> And that piece is also firewalled.
Sounds like you got it down pretty good.
> > Guess I should go off line with this. But I'm interested in peoples
> > views. It's very easy to have misunderstandings through this medium.
> >
> >> One must strike a proper line between too loose and too tight.
> >
> > Yup. My observations have been that due to lack of clear
> > understanding of not only the vulnerabilities, but also the frequency
> > and ease of abuse. Most have the view that it will not happen to them.
>
> Yes, similar to flying airplanes, when I was learning to fly they told
> me that with regards to retractable gear aircraft there were two types
> of pilots, those who had landed gear up and those who would. I have done
> it twice,(down lock failure to engage and broken downlock adjustment
> screw) both times there was a gear malfunction, so I have done it, but
> there are a great number out there who say "it will not happen to me"
> the forget to put the bloody thing down! Same goes for WiFi. Sooner or
> later some one will try it so why leave the door open?
Exactly. Though I only flew small single engine planes which had
non-retractable gears.
WiFi is growing in popularity soo fast and is so much fun, you know a lot of
attention is going to it.
> Chuck Hast
- --
Steve
"They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
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