The Internet for me is really helpful. I can send emails, buy products, research my columns and play games across vast distances with my cable modem. My wife and I feel paralyzed at our relativesÕ homes that do not have the luxury of high-speed Internet. The 56K analog modem connection via a copper telephone line causes both of us to wince upon hearing that fax-machine handshake tone at sign on. My wife and I are sort of spoiled by our cable modem and wish that everyone had high-speed Internet like us. The only problem we see is that not everyone wants to pay for the luxury of high-speed Internet connections like we do.

Leave it to the geniuses in the PeopleÕs Republic of San Francisco to come up with a full-blown communist solution to that problem. In a move that would leave the most violent anti-capitalist revolutionary in 1959 Cuba aglow with feverish ecstasy, some Bay Area citizens are constructing ÒfreeÓ wireless networks. These wireless local area networks (LAN) offer free Internet access to anybody with a laptop/PC compliant with the 802.11b wireless networking standard and within range of the wireless LANÕs antenna.

For example, a network engineer living downtown pays for high-speed Internet through a cable modem or DSL line. He then buys an 802.11b router for a couple of hundred bucks, attaches it to his cable modem and places it next to his window. Linksys, a maker of networking products, claims that their wireless 802.11b router is capable of a 400+ meter outdoor operating range. In urban San Francisco where homes are right on top of each other, 400 meters could cover a hundred families at a time. Truly, the few who have can give to the many that have not. Equality and parity is reached! High-speed wireless Internet access for the masses! The glory of the workersÕ utopia is upon us!

You might have noticed that such a network is not at all ÒfreeÓ to the network engineer who has to blow at least $200 on the router and almost half that per month for the high-speed Internet line. If our altruistic network engineer decides to share his cable modem connection, what happens to his connection to the Internet? Consider the fact that cable modems are susceptible to bandwidth limitations on multiple users. If everyone in your neighborhood has a cable modem and decides to use them at 7 PM every night, the bandwidth limitations inherent with cable Internet will drag your (and everyone elseÕs) connection speed down at 7 PM. With our network engineerÕs ÒfreeÓ wireless network operating constantly, his own Internet browsing experience will suffer along with those who are using his network. The signal degradation, slow access times and general sluggishness of the wireless LAN would undoubtedly cause many of the human leeches on his ÒfreeÓ network to do something about itÉ Like, complain to the network engineer that the network is too slow.

What? Are you kidding? Why would the leeches pitch in and buy a faster line to the Internet or upgrade the network engineerÕs router? That would cost money and the whole reason why these parasites are on the ÒfreeÓ wireless network is because it is FREE.

In all seriousness, one such network engineer in urban San Francisco has said that he has gotten to know his neighbors much better now that they are siphoning off of his high-speed Internet. CNET News quoted one member of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group as saying that his neighbors are very happy with using his Internet access free of charge. "Occasionally, they bring me pies and things like that." Yeah, IÕd have no problem giving up the occasional pastry to my next-door neighbor if it meant I could save $50 a month on my cable modem bill. This is no different than bringing a cupcake over to your neighborÕs house after youÕve hooked up your garden hose to his faucet so you could water your lawn everyday for the past month. Also, there are probably seventeen other neighbors and uncounted passers-by that have used this guyÕs water for the past month free of charge without giving him anything.

Many of the leftist geeks running these wireless LANs in the spirit of Òanarchistic cooperationÓ will quickly point out that most cable modem/DSL Internet access is not based on usage the way water/electricity is. This is true, but I should point out that most major high-speed Internet companies like Time-Warner Cable and AT&T Broadband limit their subscribersÕ bandwidth usage. AT&T and Time-Warner offer two different levels of broadband service: consumer and business.

Consumers get the basic package of email and some storage space for a web page. Businesses are allowed to host their corporate web pages on a dedicated server for a premium price. However, it did not take long to figure out that companies could buy the consumer package, attach their own server to the cable modem and run their own corporate web page for much less than the cost of the expensive business package.

Abuse of wireless LANs extend beyond the hippie home user in urban San Fran, too. Many hackers have exploited businesses with wireless networks by leeching off of their corporate Internet access. Say you are a consultant putting together a wireless LAN for a law office downtown. Each lawyer gets a wireless network card for his laptop and you connect an 802.11b wireless router to the companyÕs DSL so that the lawyers will have Internet access anywhere in the office. Without properly securing the wireless LAN router, you have opened up the company network resources to anyone within range of the wireless router. Private and confidential information is now ÒfreeÓ along with high-speed Internet access for hackers sitting in the coffee shop across the street with a laptop. This is not a hypothetical, it is real and it happens in cities like San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC where wireless LANs abound.

If you have a high-speed Internet connection and want to allow possibly hundreds of leeches draining your bandwidth ø fine. It is your money and you should be able to do whatever you want with it. If you are a business who either makes money off of subscribers to your Internet service or a corporation with a wireless LAN, these are some steps you should take to secure your interests:

á Monitor your bandwidth usage. Whether you are an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or a company sharing a high-speed Internet connection via wireless LAN, you should monitor your network traffic. As an ISP, warn the single users when they sign up that pushing 20GB a day on their accounts will have to either pay extra for their service or be immediately terminated. As a corporate IT manager, monitor overall Internet usage to see if there are abnormal spikes in bandwidth after working hours.

á Patch your companyÕs computer operating systems. This is one of the quickest fixes a company can do, made easier by the free Windows Update website if you are running Microsoft Windows 98SE or newer on your PCs. Many corporations have not upgraded their operating systems or their computers in years and are probably due. If you think you have to run Windows 95 clients over a Novell Netware 4.11 server because you cannot afford to upgrade, I point to the fact that computers are cheaper than ever. With the proper planning and support, a migration to newer technology like Windows 2000 does not have to be as bad as the generally lazy IT staff members around the world make it out to be. And if you think that moving from Windows to Linux is simple and cost-free, IÕve got some nearly worthless VA Linux stock to sell you.

á Secure your network via routers and firewalls. Security should be at the top of most organizationÕs agendas nowadays. Many cyber-security companies use hackers to test the security of corporate LANs and will determine if your network can be compromised. I personally do not like the idea of paying a thief to inspect my house for security, because I do not trust thieves. I know there are better security experts other than the stereotypical man-child hacker with a ponytail and Limp Bizkit concert T-shirt. If you have firewall software and hardware routers in place already, have a qualified security expert take a second look at them.

Wireless Internet is going to become more popular and ubiquitous in the near future. I just hope that the businesses that provide consumers with this service can scrape off the parasites first.

Scott McCollum is an independent consultant and tech industry insider living in Austin, Texas. He is a contributing editor for World Tribune.com and his column will be featured in WorldTechTribune, a new publication by WorldTribune.com, which will be coming soon. His opinions have also been featured at Pure Politics, the NewsFactor Network and on the internationally syndicated Cyber-Line radio talk show.

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