Technology Futures

You should take a look at this article [link no longer available] if you operate a home or small business wireless network. It details how easy it is to crack the encryption, which then gives the hacker access to all your computer files. What is even more alarming is how many people don't configure the low cost wireless routers correctly and often leave the encryption turned off completely.

A neighbor who uses one of the devices related the story of an individual in a pickup truck who started parking near his home in the evenings for an hour or two. Thinking it might be a burglar casing the home for a later break in, he was understandably concerned. The first thing he did was take a casual stroll one evening when the truck was parked out there, and noticed the guy was tapping away on a laptop. The lightbulb went on, he ran home, and checked his wireless router. Sure enough, he had left the encryption off, and the visitor had been enjoying free broadband every evening.

So the neighbor turned encryption back on, then walked over to the window. Sure enough, within a minute, the guy closed the lid on his laptop, started his truck, and drove away. He has not been back since.

Another friend, who installs Ethernet cabling for a living, related the story of moving to a new neighborhood. After unpacking his laptop and firing it up, he checked for WiFi signals. From inside his home, he was able to see four unsecured WiFi networks from his new neighbors, meaning that none of them had security turned on. Had he wanted to, he could have made copies of their files or looked for personal information.

If you are using WiFi at home, be careful. Turn on encryption and require password access. And if you are operating a home-based business, I can't recommend using WiFi at all. Spend the money to get Ethernet cable to the rooms where you work. One big benefit of cabled networks--much faster network speeds, which is great for doing backups, file sharing, and room to room music sharing.

In one of the better uses I've seen for RFIDs (Radio Frequency ID), the power tool maker Bosch is going to put them in its line of portable power tools. Power tools are stolen frequently from construction sites, and with the purchase of a portable monitoring device, contractors would be able to keep better track of their tools. This is a sensible use of RFIDs that is much better than the creepy plans of some retailers who want to embed them in clothing so they can track us wherever we go (e.g. how many times a month we stop in Target, Walmart, etc.).

Business Week has an interesting and thoughtful article about how Internet-enabled voluntary collaboration is changing the rules of business, mostly for the better. It cites a wealth of examples, from the company that cut its $2000/month long distance bill by 90% to Proctor and Gamble, which is leveraging outside the company innovation to save money and develop new products.

This article is a good sign, because it is focuses on the outcomes of broadband, rather than the stuff of broadband. Customers--that is, us--don't really care about how broadband gets into our homes and businesses. We don't really care whether it is fiber or wireless or free space optics. We want affordable broadband, and we want as much as we need. But the benefits are what the Business Week article discusses--what we are doing with it. And the article should make it crystal clear to economic developers that broadband is a critical issue if your job depends on creating jobs and attracting businesses--broadband is a business essential. Anyone who thinks otherwise is headed fast down the wrong road.

The Pete Session bill (R-Texas) would create a Federal law prohibiting states and munipalities from offering broadband as a public service. Sessions has this to say:

"Rather than investing in vital public works projects, some local and state governments are investing their limited funds into telecommunications projects and putting taxpayer dollars at risk," the five-term congressman from Dallas said in a statement. "By choosing to invest their limited resources in telecommunications infrastructures, municipal governments often duplicate services already provided by a private entity."

It is worth noting that Sessions, before he became a Congressman, worked for the phone company. What a surprise. Sessions would have apparently opposed public water projects one hundred years ago, since there were private water companies before cities and towns began to take on that service. Sessions apparently would have also opposed paved roads, since private companies also built roads before governments took that over.

It is hard to understand just how foolish Sessions can be, but it seems obvious the man has not studied much history, and has thought very little about how communities came to provide what he calls "vital public works projects." Most of those were taken on because the private sector could not or would not provide those services to every household and business. Does that sound familiar?

There is also a constitutional question here. Where the does the Federal government find it has jurisdiction over local, intra-state communities, or the states themselves, in this matter?