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o Policy & Management

Human Enhanced Network and Wireless Security

Wireless and network communications have become ubiquitous within our daily lives. Yet, the security of such systems is often done poorly, or not at all. In the future where nearly everything from toasters to refrigerators will emanate signals, a lack of robust wireless security together with a lack of human centered support for monitoring and managing wireless security will create security and management problems far beyond what we have seen to date. In such a future, we believe that security must be tightly integrated with management and be transparent to both network managers and end-users to prevent such problems.

As part of our effort to integrate security transparently into next generation wireless systems, we are developing a next generation wide-area wireless test-bed that will stretch approximately twenty-one miles along a major interstate (I-95). The purpose of this test-bed is to ensure that effective security is designed simultaneously with advances in networking and management technology to ensure security is done right from the beginning and to ensure that graphical interfaces focused on supporting security needs are developed. Areas that are being addressed include wireless security interfaces, automatic self-configuration, dynamic expansion of coverage areas, mesh networking, and the management of the next generation wireless systems.

The Ubiquitous Wireless Interworking (UWIN) test-bed builds on the past successes at the University of Maryland in wireless networking, wireless security and human computer interaction. Researchers at Maryland were the first to identify several major and helped solve problems with the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network standard as well as the IEEE 802.1x port control standard. Researchers associated with CHESS have authored numerous academic papers and the definitive text on Wi-Fi security.