Ball State collaborated with Avnet Enterprise Solutions and Bluesocket to install and administer six Bluesocket Wireless Gateways to secure the university’s network.

“On our campus, we need to have a wireless presence that allows our students and faculty to have the flexibility to communicate without limitations,” said O’Neal Smitherman, Ball State’s vice president for information technology.

Although university officials were committed to making the wireless environment accessible, they were also concerned with making it secure.

“After researching many alternatives, we determined that the Bluesocket Wireless Gateway was the least intrusive,” Smitherman said. “We’re able to maintain security without requiring our users to take lengthy steps to load their own clients and configure their computers.”

Simplified, as users log on to the wireless network with their computers, cell phones or personal digital assistants, their requests are routed through one of the gateways. They must enter a user name and a password to gain access.

As users gain access to the network, they may choose to protect their connection with encryption by using a “helper tool” that will make the process of establishing a secure connection easier. They also have the option to use the network without encryption, said Loren Malm, senior coordinator of Ball State’s University Computing Services.

“Requiring users to log on gives us the ability to approve the use of the network and keep track of who is using it,” Malm said. “The encryption places a ‘protective wrapper’ of sorts around the information that users send and receive over the wireless network, which prevents unauthorized eavesdropping and protects users’ privacy.”

In the emerging technology of wireless networks, security was an afterthought, Malm said. Providers want to offer convenience with the latest technology, but they also must make it secure to protect users’ private information.

While protecting users’ privacy, Internet service providers must also protect their system from hackers trying to attack it or to gain free access to the Internet.

“When someone hacks in through a wireless network, they are essentially attacking the castle from inside the moat,” Malm said. “We don’t want people simply driving through campus and infiltrating one of our systems from inside our own firewall.”

The act of tapping into wireless systems is called “war driving.” Marking places where users can gain free access to the Internet through wireless networks is called “war chalking.”

With a laptop, a wireless card, network scanning software and an antenna, hackers seek out these unsecured locations. Once found, they either use chalk to mark buildings with symbols to alert fellow hackers or publish the information on the Internet.

Allowing Ball State users to log on anywhere on campus to a secure system was a tough challenge for all of the project’s partners.

“Bluesocket Wireless Gateways really help to future-proof our customers’ wireless network infrastructures,” said Jay O’Callaghan, vice president of Avnet Enterprise Solutions, Network Solutions. “This is particularly important now as we work with our customers to help them find the right balance between enough access and enough security.”

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact Smitherman at (765) 285-1045 or osmitherman@bsu.edu or Malm at (765) 285-2001 or lmalm@bsu.edu. For more stories, log on to the Ball State University News Center at www.bsu.edu/news.)