Wi-Fi Crime Fighters
CIO Magazine is running a short article about how police in Post Falls, Idaho have covered the town in WiFi for their own use. They say they tried other wireless solutions such as GPRS, but found the same problems normal users have found: they’re fairly slow and the usage-based pricing model is disincentive to use. So, they spent a little over $200,000 and WiFi’d up the whole town. They say they don’t want anyone else on the network, because (clearly) they don’t want others accessing police data, but also to keep the network from getting bogged down. Of course, they say they’re protecting the network using WEP – which is notoriously weak for security. They’ve also had to make some adjustments to handle roaming, since the WiFi-equipped police cruisers are constantly on the move, but need to be clearly identified for auditing purposes.
