WiFi and Wireless Networks Simplified
{Origianlly published in the Western New York Paralegal Association newsletter, 2007-08}
All techno-jargon aside, we all know that computers, phones, printers, and other devices communicate without wires all the time in today’s offices and cities. The two main ways are Bluetooth and WiFi. They use different signals and patterns of data, just like television and radio are on different wavelength bands and read by different machines.
Bluetooth is most common for individual devices to “talk” to each other, such as a cell phone and a wireless headset, or a palm pilot and a computer, synchronizing data such as a schedule calendar or address book. It’s also used as a substitute for infrared connections, such has printers and keyboards, but does not require direct line of sight (like a TV remote). It is considered idea for simple devices sharing small amounts of information.
Most networks, however, use WiFi (associated with some “802.11” standard, the number you will see on many device boxes when you buy them). It can have a range currently of up to about 300 feet. That means two important things. First, you can network a bunch of computers together with a WiFi wireless router. Secondly, people with a laptop can go into such a zone — a “WiFi hot spot” — and access the network, which also can mean Internet access if the network is set up to share a connection to the Internet.
The good news is that being able to connect to a WiFi network is easy. All you have to do is have a computer with a wireless (WiFi) card and physically be in the hotspot (range of the signal).
There are hotspots cropping up all over the world, in cities and towns, hotel lobbies and food courts. Some are advertised more than others, and there are many web sites that list and map out publicly available hotspots. Just be aware that most places provide the connection for free, but not all. For example, access at Panera Breads currently is free, while Starbucks charges a fee (call ahead for rates). However, if the Starbucks is across the street from a hotel lobby, you may be in range and use theirs.
Some municipalities are even working toward universal connectivity by turning a downtown area, village, or even a whole county into a “hotspot” with coverage throughout. This will be much easier with new technology being developed as we speak to increase range and set up infrastructure.
But for businesses and individuals with their own wireless network, the bad news is the same as the good news — being able to connect to a WiFi network is TOO easy. If you have a network that is not secure, anyone within the router’s reception area can access any shared files, printers, or Internet connections on the network. It could mean people in the next office over — or even someone parked on the street nearby — could potentially access your network. It may or may not matter if your neighbors “borrow” your Internet connection, but any shared files, depending on the setup of the network, could potentially be copies (stolen), deleted, or changed.
To secure a network does not mean having a “firewall” to prevent attacks from the outside world, which used to mean just your Internet connection. It means giving out rights to some machines and not others, just as in a wired network. This is ordinarily done by installing an encrypted “key” — a long series of numbers and letters — on computers that are supposed to have access. A company’s technical support people should be able to handle this, or you can read the instructions that come with the purchase of a wireless card. The key is generated by the computer that controls the router, the instructions for which come with that device when you buy it. That way, when someone using a wireless-capable laptop strolls by the office or home where there is a network, it will still show up as available to access, but not be able to do so — unless they have the key.
Lastly, be aware that if you have files on your laptop that are “shared” (in a networked folder, common for personal computers since Windows XP) may be accessible to other people on a network, even a public one.
As a businessperson or professional, the important thing is that it is your responsibility to protect your data, which often includes clients’ data. Medical, legal, and financial professions in particular may be required to protect such information and may be held liable if it is stolen when it could have been protected by simple networking security. There are actually people hunting for it, scouring office buildings and neighborhoods for an unsecured network with sellable information.
The bottom line is that the world we live in is going wireless in leaps and bounds. Apart from the risks of not knowing the basics of how it works, understanding WiFi and wireless networks is a blessing too great to pass up. Soon — very soon — you will be able to access anything, at any time, from anywhere, and wireless is the way it will be done.
The Myth of the Myth of the Paperless Office
{Originally published in a paralegals publication in 2008}
With the advent of the computer in every home and business, paper was declared obsolete. But people in the real world found otherwise, and some even had more paper than before, thanks to the ability to produce the written (and therefore printed) word at record breakneck pace. Requirements for original signatures spurred the overnight shipping industry, dashing hopes that email would change the world. As soon as the decree against killing trees for Gutenberg’s descendants was ironically printed in magazines and other tactile media, it was declared a mistrial. Our information transversed time and space digitally, but in the end, met its fate on a dot matrix printer — the “last mile” for data was tread on pulp.
But in spite of admitting defeat — and monuments erected in the form of filing cabinets, the inscriptions of which were laser and toner but nonetheless on paper — history didn’t end there. The world changed in ways that we didn’t expect. Stable digital storage. High capacity drives and media. Optical character recognition (OCR). Digital archiving.
And though we thought we had lost the battle to eliminate paper, the need for speed and efficiency ignored our past. Digital signatures. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Portable File Documents (PDF). Email encryption keys for identity verification. The way we THOUGHT about data changed when in spite of giving up on going paperless, the technology to do it caught up with us.
Is your office paperless? Of course not. But huge amounts of data are free of arborous karma. Data is archived more and more by backing up, and less and less by printing out. We finally realize that it is easier to forward an email than print and hand it to the person next to you. Digital calendars, memos, newsletters, postings, and collaborations of all kinds make their only mark on the screen, never touched by human hands.
If paperless is not an absolute, but a degree, then the war was won after all. The initial efficiency of computers for data production outpaced its ability to store and transfer it without paper. Those days are no more. And the future is even brighter, carrying over paperlessness into every aspect of our lives. Online reservations. Online account statements. Biometric identity scans. RFID inventory tracking and personnel pass keys. Cardless PayPal commerce.
And this whole virtual world, with more data in our lifetime than the whole history of the world combined, can be scaled, replicated, and archived for eternity without “loosing” so much as a leaf.
Email Account “Warning” Phishing
I get a lot of these lately. Seriosuly, people, if they ask for information they should already know, it’s obviously a scam. Reminds me of phone scams where they ask you to verify your credit card information and full SS number.
From: Louise Collins [LCollins@clarku.edu]Subject: Your Mail Box Quota Has Exceeded The Set LimitYour mailbox has exceeded the storage limit which is 20GB as set by your administrator, you are currently running on 20.9GB,
you may not be able to send or receive new mail until you re-validate your mailbox.
To re-validate your mailbox please click the link below:If the link above does not work please copy and paste the link below to your browser windowThanks
Louise Collins
System Administrator
And
From: hgadisman@djusd.k12.ca.us
To: info@team.com
Subject: MAILBOX UPDATEAttn: Faculty/Staff/Students,This is to inform you that your mailbox will soon be de-activated by your System Administrator due to an unusual activity detected in your mailbox. We noticed that webmail account has been compromised by spammers. It seems they have gained access to webmail accounts and have been using it for illegal internet activities. The center is currently performing maintenance and upgrading it’s data base. We intend upgrading our Email Security Server for better online services hence you may not be able to receive new mail until your mailbox is upgraded. Please Click the link below to validate your mailbox and upgrade your account.
http://seaccouted.4-all.org If your mailbox becomes de-activated for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual closure of your mailbox. The information contained in this e-mail may be confidential and is intended solely for the use of the named addressee. Access, copying or re-use of the e-mail or any information contained herein by any other person is not authorized.
Attn: Faculty/Staff/Students,
This is to inform you that your mailbox will soon be de-activated by your System Administrator due to an unusual activity detected in your mailbox. We noticed that webmail account has been compromised by spammers. It seems they have gained access to webmail accounts and have been using it for illegal internet activities. The center is currently performing maintenance and upgrading it’s data base. We intend upgrading our Email Security Server for better online services hence you may not be able to receive new mail until your mailbox is upgraded. Please Click the link below to validate your mailbox and upgrade your account.
… the link of which takes you to:
And one for the road …
From: System Administrator [selena@selena.net.ua]
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Dear UserDear User,
Your mailbox has exceeded the storage limit which is 20GB as set by your
administrator, you are currently running on 20.9GB, you may not be able to
receive some new mail until you re-validate your mailbox.
To re-validate your mailbox please click the link below:Note: If the link above didn’t work please send below information to thesystem administrator email address: accupdate00@w.cnFirst Name:…………..
Last Name:……………
E-mail:………………
Users Name:…………..
Password:…………….
Thanks
System Administrator
The Techno-Racial Divide
{published in April 2004 issue of Western New York Catholic monthly periodical}
Brenda:
It was a pleasure reading your article in the Feb’04 WNY Catholic, “Work to equalize the technological racial divide,” as it raises an issue I as a professional in the IT industry have always been concerned with. Globally, it is disappointing the scale of technological (and economic) disparity, where only half the people in the world have even used a telephone, but the problem in our own backyard is something we can no longer ignore and we can all do something about.
But before offering some helpful suggestions to addressing the problem, another problem was brought out unintentionally by what you wrote. You state that the “haves” are responsible for the development of products inaccessible to the “have-nots” which paints an inaccurate picture of intentional class war or the technological equivalent of the “Jim Crow” laws. This paints the Internet as a white-controlled environment, which is not only simply not true, but creates discouragement toward a medium that has the nearly infinite potential to level all playing fields.
The fact is that like every other ethnicity in America and around the world, African-Americans have made contributions to all aspects of “high technology” from positions such as software or hardware engineer, marketer, manufacturer-laborer, all the way up to CEO of various technology companies. Technology is not the exclusive realm of any demographic, at least in America. Some of the poorest neighborhoods in Buffalo may even have more cell phones and other electronic gadgets per person that my own neighborhood.
So isn’t it misleading to say simply that the rich are making things the poor can’t afford? If that was the problem, why are there no complaints about more and more expensive vehicles in an America where personal transportation can mean the difference between gainful and ungainful unemployment? Taking it one step further, don’t lower and middle class families deserve side airbags, like those who can afford such vehicles? The problem with these arguments are that is can become finger-pointing or an excuse to not address the real problem. Ironically, the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, owner of the Microsoft empire, spends countless billions of dollars on providing computers and Internet access to the country’s poorest neighborhoods, in particular in the Northwest.
None of us have the “right” to a car with OnStar GPS service and airbags in every direction, or to a cutting-edge computer at our fingertips, but your article points to the truth — in an age where access to technology can be a major contributing factor (though I don’t say a determining one) in a child’s or older individual’s success, there is a economic and racial divide that must be addressed.
But there are solutions. Existing public access at libraries and free computer training at various agencies is a good start. At least in theory, every one of us has access.
But we must establish a measurable watermark as to the minimum degree and amount of access and EDUCATION relating to computers and the Internet. Some neighborhood schools will have the newest toys and it would be ridiculous to knock them for it as unfair if they can afford it, but there should be a minimum requirement for all schools, and programs or incentives to ensure they all reach this watermark. This approach should be applied to the whole neighborhood — the schools, libraries, even homes. The Church is a pervasive social force in most places, and could establish initiative to study the problem in detail and develop programs accordingly, even if it means public education about and promoting existing programs in the community.
And there are many things we can all do to help. What about sponsoring a needy child on your street, letting them use the computer in your home for Internet homework resources? What about suburban parishes with schools pairing up with an urban school to provide occasional classes or even regular access to (more up to date) computer labs? As a business owner, I would offer access to my office for anyone in the neighborhood who needed access for job searching online. How could I refuse? Many businesses have an extra desk or PC around at times, and could use them to increase access in their respective communities.
So your article touches on a real issue that deserves serious attention. Let’s take that step forward and start the dialogue between the “haves” and “have-nots”, and put our faith into practice by creating and using any means necessary to share such resources.
Blast from the Past: The Operating System War is Over
{February 2004}
The battle between Windows and Linux was as intricate as any war could possibly be. And the fighting will continue as isolated skirmishes in chat rooms, bulletin boards and the occasional court battle. But the fate of the consumer computing market is sealed.
The whole time since IBM’s culture of computing empire was passed to Microsoft, the non-MS vote was divided between the Open Source non-empire and the third-party platform, Apple.
And in the war, Linux didn’t even show up on radar, though for a short while I was convinced it would eventually mature and become half of a two-standard world. Yes I was naive to think that Linux was even a viable OS instead of merely an operating platform (a distinction few made and to their own demise).
But the push for Linux boxes to flood the Chinese market — the last great untapped and undecided market for so many goods — simply never happened. There were to be two boxers in the ring, and one didn’t show up for the fight. If China would have chosen Linux, it would have staved off extinction. But now, it’s days as a possible widespread consumer platform are numbered.
The surrender of the global consumer computer OS market to Windows was figuratively signed yesterday between Bill Gates and Chinese President Hu, and again, the loser of the war didn’t even show. In fact, he wasn’t invited. And the relations between Microsoft and China may seal far more than even economic dominance by one of its corporate players, but add to the possibility of long-term world peace in its own way.
But in consumer computing, there will be no two-party system in China or the world for ages to come. The only thing that truly remains to be seen is if our world’s great-grandchildren will all be speaking in English or Chinese.
They, Robot — Coming Soon
{published in 2004}
Below is an advertisement for Honda from an old technology magazine (copyright 2002). I have been saying for years that the bridge between occasional and pervasive computer technology is not just quantitative, but qualitative, as in actively compter-controlled peripherals that are capable of interacting with the environment.
I don’t mean a thermostat telling the heater to go on. I mean taking the technology that physically sorts the mail and assembles components in manufacturing to the consumer level – having your computer open and close the garage door, or telling your car to put the hazards on if you’re not back in 60 seconds. In other words, computers that can DO things in the physical world apart from printing and playing MP3s.
And in the end, that means having computers with arms that can manipulate objects above and beyond task-specific automation. And THIS is an example of what I’m talking about.
We’re building a dream, one robot at a time.
The dream was simple. Design a robot that, one day, could duplicate the complexities of human motion and actually help people. An easy task? Hardly. But after more than 15 years of research and development, the result is ASIMO, an advanced robot with unprecedented human-like abilities. ASIMO walks forward and backward, turns corners,
and goes up and down stairs with ease. All with a remarkable sense of strength and balance.
The future of this exciting technology is even more promising. ASIMO has the potential to respond to simple voice commands, recognize faces, carry loads and even push wheeled objects. This means that, one day, ASIMO could be quite useful in some very important tasks. Like assisting the elderly, and even helping with household chores. In essence, ASIMO might serve as another set of eyes, ears and legs for all kinds of people in need.
All of this represents the steps we’re taking to develop products that make our world a better place. And in ASIMO’s case, it’s a giant step in the right direction.
In the Year 2000
{Published in 2004}
The year 2000, like every year in our living memory, has brought us wondrous new ideas and inventions. However, in a span of mere Springtime, several notable advances have taken place, almost completely unreported by the media, that are serious benchmarks in the advancement of human civilization.
These three things alone I am proud to have happened in my lifetime, let alone a few short months.
(1) The first complete mapping of the Human Genome. Entire fields of study are now officially off the theoretical lsit and in serious research and development, such as genomics and bioinformatics.
We’re not only talking about identifying the specific mechanisms of hereditary illnesses. We’re talking about the ability to create an entire pharmaceutical process based on “designer drugs” custom made for an individuals body chemistry.
Bad side? Genetic warfare, where chemicals can be made to target people based on genetic (racial) traits. Except in these last few years since then, we discovered there’s almost no such thing as “racial” traits. Whew!
The future? Removal of congenital illnesses before birth. Custom-ordered children and genetically “enhanced” humans (a mixed blessing and moral questionability).
(2) The invention of the Optical Processor. Information processed within a computer at the speed of light, using light waves instead of eletrical impulses over a conductive metal. Beats the <heck> out of the old 233 Mhz (or so) I started with back in 1996.
Bad side? It will become commerically available, but will be obsolete when quantum computers come around in the next generation or so. But optical RAM will come still in handy.
The future? Along with quantum processing (which is on the verge of no longer being theoretical as we speak – seriously), the home computer of my great-grandchildren will be able to do more than any machine can do today, even the supercomputer banks used by the big boys. And when you open an application, MAYBE you finally wont have to wait for it to open. It just will. And we all want to see Windows boot up like a light switch.
(3) Repeatability in Breaking the Speed of Light. You heard me. They did it once, and repeated the experiemnt in another lab. The shocker? The accelerated particle hit the target chronologically BEFORE it was fired, by a fraction of a millisecond.
Bad side? Re-writing physics books, or at least fighting endlessesly over the implications of time travel, yadda, yadda…
The future? No idea, but God broke a few rules if you take Einstein to be Gospel. Maybe the future will necessitate a whole new generation of philosopher-scientists, much as happend at the birth of Relativity vs. Quantum Mechanics almost four generations ago.
Addendum {2004}, from Quantum’s Next Leap:
At a late-January meeting in a Marriott off the Washington beltway in Falls Church, Va., the Defense Department’s main technology-research arm floated a proposal as nearly 100 scientists listened. They’d come from Boeing, IBM, Lockheed Martin, and other companies; from the Army, the Navy, and NASA; and from leading universities to hear a proposal for accelerating efforts to build a computer that theoretically could exist inside a coffee cup.
Within the next several months, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which will spend more than $2.8 billion this year on research and development for the Pentagon, is expected to launch a multimillion-dollar program to kick-start U.S. research in quantum computing, an esoteric area of inquiry under way at government labs, universities, and companies such as AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Microsoft. These supercomputers–built according to the strange laws of quantum physics, often operating at temperatures nearing absolute zero, and occupying spaces that can resemble a vial of liquid more than an electronic box–theoretically could perform within seconds calculations that take today’s machines hours and solve in hours problems that might require centuries if run on state-of-the-art silicon.
Addendum {2010}:
William Volterman commented in 2005, with similar challenges over the years regarding breaking the speed of light:
I dont know where you got your info about beating the speed of light but i can tell you this… if it sounds to good to be true it is… and that experiment even if it were true doesnt show what was claimed…
but back to the point… scientists often want to make a name for themselves… and not all scientists are equal
Apparently, the experiments I referred to remained obscure and are not accepted by mainstream scientists. In an email last year to a friend across the pond, I wrote …
I can’t find reference to the original experiments in France, but it may be related to this: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/faster_than_c_000719.html
The results are questionable, and conclusions possibly wrong. My point was if they were correct, it would make sense to me.
So there you have it … or don’t quite have it rather. I stand corrected.
But it was still a good year.
The War on Digital Terror
{Published November 16th, 2004, not sent directly to actual senators}
Dear Senators:
If there were to be an attack on America, one that would disrupt the economy and the lives of countless millions of people, resulting in billions of dollars in damage to American businesses and governments, would you want to know?
What if I was to tell you that it’s too late? As you are reading this, we are now under attack. I am not talking of cyber-terrorists and hackers, but about businesses whose only gain is in jamming the Internet with mass marketing, intrusive data-gathering, and even wholesale computer hijacking in the name of profit.
American companies spent over $10 Billion dollars last year in lost productivity and security measures to prevent “spam” from disrupting communications on every level, from consumer ISPs to municipal networks. Even nuclear-attack-resistant datacenters are no longer safe, because the attack they must be ready for is no longer military in nature. But as in military technology, the war is never over, as software is developed to counter software systems that counter more software.
We are losing the war, as such a basic medium as email is becoming impossible to use for some. Apart from destruction of physical and intellectual property, breaches in such things as confidentiality, security, and identity are at constant risk, and are compromised on a scale never before possible.
The enemy has a name. We know who they are. They route traffic through mainland China and other countries to skirt the laws that can’t be passed fast enough to keep up, and yet many are American citizens, living in America. And many are mere shadows, erasing their tracks and only leaving an occasional consumer making a payment in the wake of out-of-control marketing where all the burden is on the country’s mail systems and the receivers of the messages, not the senders.
But this is a threat because Information Technology is the battlefront of our times. From e-Government and electronic health care record initiatives that will save countless lives and dollars, to a booming economy in every sector and supply chain, an attack in these areas can stagnate or even devastate our communications and economy in the long-term.
My point of this letter is not to debate a special interest topic, like global warming or tobacco lawsuits. This issue underpins everything in our lives. In the last few years, humanity has reached a benchmark more significant than the splitting of the atom. There is nothing that can stop the drive for total communications and access to all the world’s information everywhere and at all times. The Internet, modern phone systems, and networks that are yet to come will form a nebulous cloud of interconnected computers, communications devices, document systems, and appliances in all areas of modern life, private and commercial. It has already started – you can see it all around you. There may still be paper, but the paper age is clearly over. In other words, our lifeline to each other is no longer the Eisenhower Thruway System and telephone wires. Fiber optical cable and radio towers – not copper and asphalt – measure the true distance between our citizens and between us and the rest of the world.
Now I do not think it is inherently the government’s responsibility to fix problems in the commercial sector. However, the Internet is larger than any company, industry, or nation, and affects every citizen in every aspect of our lives, from freedom of speech, press, and assembly, as well as access to information, goods and services. This is a new way of life for America and the world, a way of life that is – and has been – under constant attack.
What I do ask is that government acknowledge the need for particular attention paid to this problem, which is perhaps a important as or similar to the need for a homeland security bureau. We must hunt down those who would constantly threaten this important aspect of our growing way of life as seriously as those who would do us physical harm in sporadic acts of terrorism.
Foster a commercial environment that would encourage consensus among the leaders of industry and information technology for standards of prevention. Create a legal climate that would impose extreme criminal penalties upon those who are found responsible for the dissemination of hostile code and unwarranted web traffic. Remember, they are not killing one person, but something perhaps much more serious – they are cumulatively taking away literally thousands of lifetimes of moments and effort from everyday people. Pursue such initiatives as rewards for hunters and finger-pointers of such companies and people, taken from the confiscation of all their assets. Hold companies, domestic and foreign, equally accountable for third-party marketing practices.
But do not wait to act. The leaders of the technology sector are doing what they can, but are not winning the war. The federal government must be their ally. The country is counting on them – and you – to save us from this unprecedented threat to the world’s potentially unprecedented prosperity.
Sincerely,
Ken JP Stuczynski
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