The performance angle is what would strike me as the worst feature in an office. We use it to supplement a switched 100Mbits desktop environment, by granting portability features to laptop users.
In a couple of years time a lot of small devices like web pads will probably be wandering around the office and will want to use wireless 802.11b cards to get their networking services. That, and employees eating their lunch outside under the trees, or wandering to a small casual meeting area, is where I see most users wanting to have wireless access.
The power bandwidth users won't be too happy with it as a CAD / CAE network. But they don't mind using it to read their email!
The Baseline to have is 802.11b with 128 bit WEP support. Use the WEP and make all the basestations only accept encrypted connections. Preferably only from NIC cards known to you to belong to the company.
You're going to need a few basestations in order to segment the network space, and also to get better coverage.
Bear in mind that it is a shared medium, so your network performance goes back to close to shared 10Mbits levels.
Best Basestation so far: Cisco / Aironet for interoperability
Best Cards: Cisco, Lucent, Nokia all seem to be much of a muchness (I haven't tested the Nokia 802.11b gear yet, and I want to - the 802.11 gear is good!)
Put the basestations in the roofspace (away from users' reach) and poke the antennae back through the tiles for a tidy looking install. That should be OK for most of the good basestations as they have the capability to extend the antennae. (unfortunately it isn't true for the Cisco one I've seen)
So what would actually constitute a conflict in cyberspace? Realistically I don't think that it could be done by human beings. It would have to be programs, reacting at millisecond scale times.
but apart from preprogramming them with some standard attacks, how could you ensure they would win? you would have to get into online war gaming to be sure your 'bot had the best strategies... maybe using learning strategies or Genetic Algorithms to grow or modify from some basic strategies.
now that does sound like an appropriate use for beowulf clusters. spread the clusters widely across the internet so as to use the actual infrastructure as part of the physics model. whoever captures the most flags by reducing the functionality or compromising the integrity of your opponent's wins.
sounds a little like the current cracker environment on the 'Net to me...
Yeah, okay. So, it's kind of long, but I was in the mood to write a dumb story about 'cyberwarfare'.:)
I guess the next wave of mil-sci-fi books ("Honor Harrington", "Miles Vorkosigan" and the like) will be about this type of hacker to hacker warfare. Somewhere between "Ender's Game" and "Crimson Tide".
io'b The Submarine paradigm would probably suit this sort of warfare. You sit in a steel box and work completely by instruments. I wonder is it a coincidence that the US Navy seem to really have a handle on some of this type of making extrapolations from signals seen on the Internet.
She uses Windows 95, but if I were to put a DSL line into that house she'd be using a Linux or *BSD (more likely, knowing me) box as a firewall and she wouldn't know it!
The next commercial battleground is the family home. Get a nice small workgroup server into your house to manage file storage and emails. Some of the recent threads I have seen on/. indicate to me that the OSS world is catching up with the commercial UNIX world in the High Availability area.
Would you let the security nightmare that is Windows 95 store your Mother's important documents and digital keys? Even if she wanted it to?
Well off-topic, but you brought my mother into this!
The reason that there is no police activity toward spam is because it unforturnately isn't illegal and they can't prosecute.
Depending on where you live there are laws in existence regarding spam. Many of these laws themselves do not classify spam as a criminal action, but do provide the basis for civil actions.
My point is that there are also other laws in existence regarding unauthorized use of computer systems and these are not used sufficiently. When spammers abuse hotmail or an open mail relay to despatch their email, why are they not prosecuted?
Doesn't MSN and AOL have ways to keep track of ip addresses they assign dynamically, and thus trace spam??
yes, and there are other ways of tracing these things too. how come an arrest can be made within seven days of the author of a bad macro virus but no police activity goes into enforcing the laws on the statute books about spam emails?
surely Spam constitutes a legitimate threat to the effectiveness of the public internet infrastructure? does the NIPC have a view? isn't it only a matter of time before some idiotic spammer decides to use the XMAS.EXEC effect (== Melissa virus effect, for you youngsters) to get a more effective reach for their email?
Slashdot Mirror
In a couple of years time a lot of small devices like web pads will probably be wandering around the office and will want to use wireless 802.11b cards to get their networking services. That, and employees eating their lunch outside under the trees, or wandering to a small casual meeting area, is where I see most users wanting to have wireless access.
The power bandwidth users won't be too happy with it as a CAD / CAE network. But they don't mind using it to read their email!
You're going to need a few basestations in order to segment the network space, and also to get better coverage.
Bear in mind that it is a shared medium, so your network performance goes back to close to shared 10Mbits levels.
Best Basestation so far: Cisco / Aironet for interoperability
Best Cards: Cisco, Lucent, Nokia all seem to be much of a muchness (I haven't tested the Nokia 802.11b gear yet, and I want to - the 802.11 gear is good!)
Put the basestations in the roofspace (away from users' reach) and poke the antennae back through the tiles for a tidy looking install. That should be OK for most of the good basestations as they have the capability to extend the antennae. (unfortunately it isn't true for the Cisco one I've seen)
but apart from preprogramming them with some standard attacks, how could you ensure they would win? you would have to get into online war gaming to be sure your 'bot had the best strategies ... maybe using learning strategies or Genetic Algorithms to grow or modify from some basic strategies.
now that does sound like an appropriate use for beowulf clusters. spread the clusters widely across the internet so as to use the actual infrastructure as part of the physics model. whoever captures the most flags by reducing the functionality or compromising the integrity of your opponent's wins.
sounds a little like the current cracker environment on the 'Net to me ...
I guess the next wave of mil-sci-fi books ("Honor Harrington", "Miles Vorkosigan" and the like) will be about this type of hacker to hacker warfare. Somewhere between "Ender's Game" and "Crimson Tide".
io'b The Submarine paradigm would probably suit this sort of warfare. You sit in a steel box and work completely by instruments. I wonder is it a coincidence that the US Navy seem to really have a handle on some of this type of making extrapolations from signals seen on the Internet.
Now, how well can your mom use Linux?
She uses Windows 95, but if I were to put a DSL line into that house she'd be using a Linux or *BSD (more likely, knowing me) box as a firewall and she wouldn't know it!
The next commercial battleground is the family home. Get a nice small workgroup server into your house to manage file storage and emails. Some of the recent threads I have seen on /. indicate to me that the OSS world is catching up with the commercial UNIX world in the High Availability area.
Would you let the security nightmare that is Windows 95 store your Mother's important documents and digital keys? Even if she wanted it to?
Well off-topic, but you brought my mother into this!
io'b
I haven't used a web-browser that defaults the page background to that lovely gunmetal grey, in about 3 years! :) Does such an animal still exist?
Yes - my Netscape Communicator 4.51 running on Slowlaris is just such an animal.
The reason that there is no police activity toward spam is because it unforturnately isn't illegal and they can't prosecute.
Depending on where you live there are laws in existence regarding spam. Many of these laws themselves do not classify spam as a criminal action, but do provide the basis for civil actions.
My point is that there are also other laws in existence regarding unauthorized use of computer systems and these are not used sufficiently. When spammers abuse hotmail or an open mail relay to despatch their email, why are they not prosecuted?
Doesn't MSN and AOL have ways to keep track of ip addresses they assign dynamically, and thus trace spam??
yes, and there are other ways of tracing these things too. how come an arrest can be made within seven days of the author of a bad macro virus but no police activity goes into enforcing the laws on the statute books about spam emails?
surely Spam constitutes a legitimate threat to the effectiveness of the public internet infrastructure? does the NIPC have a view? isn't it only a matter of time before some idiotic spammer decides to use the XMAS.EXEC effect (== Melissa virus effect, for you youngsters) to get a more effective reach for their email?