The Security Mentor

It's insane the way you have to set up a secure wireless network now. You have to type in long strings without error to tell the devices things they could figure out among themselves, and there's not enough standardization between vendors.

A few companies like Buffalo have put good solutions into their equipment but others haven't followed along, and when's the last time you saw a Buffalo access point on the shelf at Electrode Hut?

The indispensable Glenn Fleishmann reports that the trade group which forced everybody to communicate with other devices in the first place is working on security (finally).

Keep an eye out (no word on schedule yet) for equipment labeled "WPS", for Wi-fi Protected Setup. It's supposed to be standard across manufacturers. Windows Vista is supposed to support it. It's supposed to have a sane kind of setup where you simply introduce two devices to each other and tell them to communicate securely.