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Book Review: Taming the wild wireless world
By Mike Avery
Building Wireless Community Networks by Rob Flickenger ($24.95, O'Reilly & Associates, 2001) If you're like most network managers, you have a love/hate relationship with wireless networks. You like the idea of getting out of the wholesale cabling business, but all the buzz about security dangers stops you cold. No way you'll be the one who implemented technology that let the bad guys in. I recently ran across Wireless Community Networks by Rob Flickenger. This excellent book is aimed at people who want to share wireless access with informal communities - such as is done by the Bay Area Wireless Users Group in San Francisco and Guerrilla Net in the Boston area. Despite the focus, the book has enough current and relevant information to make it valuable to a variety of readers. An ISP that wants to make the plunge into becoming a wireless ISP, or WISP; an enterprise network manager who needs to know how to keep the network safe; a reader who wants to share his T-1 with his neighbors - all will find good information here. There is extensive information about "war driving" - the practice of driving around with a laptop and a wireless card looking for wireless access points. Using the information in the book on a quick drive around my hometown (population 5,000) revealed a dozen wireless access points, only two of which were secured (and both were mine!). Boy, was I surprised, and alarmed. The book is a rich source of information and pointers to more current information. If you're involved in wireless networks, you should have this book on your shelf. 
Related links Toni Kistner is managing editor of Net.Worker. Contact her at tkistner@nww.com. Telework Beat archive Apply for your free subscription to Network World. Click here. Send this article to a colleague
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