By FLORENCE OLSEN
The U.S. Military Academy, in West Point, N.Y., has begun using wireless networks in its classrooms — but only after conducting extensive research on security hazards and waiting two years for fast wireless technology to become available.
West Point officials believe the wireless network they now have is secure, which makes it unlike most wireless networks on college campuses. But to secure the network, West Point had to pay about $625,000, about five times what the network itself cost.
Most colleges have dealt with the threat of casual attackers by recognizing the problem and providing secure Web pages for students’ coursework. But West Point officials say they had to invest in a much more secure approach because their campus network is connected to the Department of Defense network, making it a more likely target of deliberate attackers.
“We cannot pose a threat to the rest of DOD through our network,” says Col. Donald J. Welch, associate dean for information and educational technology.
In setting up their wireless network, West Point officials created what is known as a virtual private network — VPN, for short — and installed 60 access controllers around the campus.
The VPN software, which West Point purchased separately from its wireless network, is made by Cranite Systems, a software company located in San Jose, Calif. The software uses the federal government’s most advanced encryption algorithm to guarantee the privacy of data files and network information.
The access controllers act as firewalls between the academy’s wireless-access hardware and the campus’s wired network. According to Colonel Welch, an expert in information security, the access controllers prevent even an “insidious type of attack.”
Technicians have installed 150 wireless-access hubs so far. Coverage of the entire campus will be completed by the start of the fall semester.
West Point is using a fast wireless technology, known as 802.11a, which requires more access devices than does the more commonly used but slower 802.11b technology. The main advantage of the 802.11a networks, beside speed, Colonel Welch says, is that they are relatively free of the congestion that often disrupts communications on the slower networks.
West Point’s network is set up so that each classroom of 18 or fewer students has its own wireless cell. Within that cell, the network bandwidth is about 25 megabits per second, or five times as fast as the effective bandwidth of 802.11b networks.
“We can watch TV over the wireless,” says Colonel Welch. “Bandwidth has not been a constraint.”