Security in an "Always On" World

By Lincoln D. Stein

Last week, after waiting years for the technology and price to catch up with my desires, I had a digital subscriber line (DSL) installed in my home. I now have a symmetrical connection to the Internet that gives me about half the speed of a T-1 line for less than a tenth the price. Several static IP addresses are at my disposal, letting me create a modest home network consisting of a Web and mail server, a desktop machine, and two laptops. I briefly considered running Ethernet through the walls so that the laptops could be plugged in to the Net from the places in which we really work—the kitchen table and the living-room sofa—but I found a better solution. We now have Lucent WaveLan cards plugged in to the laptops, giving them wireless connectivity to the network throughout the house. The WaveLan cards provide bandwidth comparable to a 10BaseT network—more than enough to utilize the DSL link's full bandwidth.

I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but for now browsing the Web while sitting on the front porch is a mind-blowing experience. In one fell swoop, I've managed to hook onto this year's three big Internet trends: wireless connectivity, broadband communications, and the "always on" Internet. I predict that this is the broad shape of things to come: high-speed Internet links going to homes, workplaces, and public buildings, and from there to wireless transceivers that seamlessly link laptops, pagers, and PDAs to the Internet. This is a much more economical use of the radio spectrum than cellular modems provide, and it has a great advantage in bandwidth.<>

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