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April 20, 2005

BT Worries About the Media

By Nancy Gohring

BT’s chief of wireless broadband thinks that media reports covering security issues with Wi-Fi may deter usage: I’m not sure what he’s suggesting—that we don’t write about security problems? That’s hardly a solution. It’s better for users to know the risks so they can do their best to protect themselves, rather than start using Wi-Fi blind to the risks. The threat of less usage due to security concerns can also spur the industry to improve security. BT’s reaction to the hysterical stories that may exaggerate the problems should be to help set the record straight, not try to suppress all coverage of the topic.

Contrast BT’s attitude with T-Mobile’s: on the T-Mobile Web site, they spell out the risk in gory detail: “As with any high-speed wireless service, the T-Mobile HotSpot network is not inherently secure. Furthermore, wireless communications can be intercepted by equipment and software designed for that purpose.” Of course, T-Mobile has been offering 802.1X authentication—each account gets a unique strong session encryption key when a user logs in using this process—for several months in the U.S.

Posted by nancyg at April 20, 2005 9:13 PM

Categories: hotspots

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