News from PANUG/BizNix - August 23, 2002
http://panug.org - http://biznix.org


WIRELESS SECURITY
by Scott Hoffman

In response to Wednesday's "Government Nixes Wireless" article:

An additional resource on the frailties of wireless (Wi-Fi) is the
current (Fall) issue of 2600 Magazine. In a couple of hours, all
the wireless access points in downtown Manhattan, NY were mapped.
The article points out that one would expect people in NYC to be
more security conscious after 9-11, but that's not the case. A
high percentage of the installations were using the factory
defaults.

There are also other, less hazardous transmitters in the 2.4 GHz
range. More cordless phones are becoming available in that range,
and the X-10 wireless cameras of web pop-up infamy also use that
frequency.  I've read that the 2.4GHz range is unregulated, much
like the CB range popular in the late-70s, so it's not only easy
for someone to deliberately sabotage an installation, it's pretty
easy to inadvertently shoot yourself in the foot. There's also the
possibility that someone else is trying to run Wi-Fi on the same
channel, ala Starbucks and Personal Telco at Pioneer Square.

[Cordless phones and wireless cameras can also be attacked by a
klystron/magnetron transmitter, but the user will likely have
more of a clue that the problem is interference because he or she
can hear it or see it. With Wi-Fi, users will think software
problems first. Ed]


NAKOMA

Novell will soon release a beta of the next version of NetWare - code
named Nakoma. This new version of Novell includes the eXtend
Application Server (formerly SilverStream eXtend), a high-performance
Java Virtual Machine, Apache Web server, Tomcat servlet engine,
PHP and Perl scripting support, and MySQL.

If you're not familiar with some of these features, Apache, Tomcat,
PHP, Perl, and MySQL are highly-regarded open source software
packages. Like IBM, open source software is an important component
of Novell's product line and allows them to control their costs.
Why spend money to engineer proprietary products when you can
include already developed, debugged, and secure code in your
design? This is a business strategy that's hard to ignore or find
fault with.

You can become a Nakoma Beta Site. Submit your application here:
http://www.novell.com/products/netware/abtester.html


NEWS

The new AOL for Mac OS X uses the Mozilla Gecko web rendering
engine.

If you use Mozilla, you can stop all unrequested pop-up windows. 
In Edit|Preferences|Advanced|Scripts & Windows there is a check
box "Open Unrequested Windows".