The building is getting structured cabling.
I've known a lot of people who were amazing at their job, but shitty at running a business. I guess I would have tried to help these lawyers and explain their wrongheaded tech decisions to see what their next move would be. That would give me a better understanding of whether they were an outfit worthy of my time.
On a side note, I have no idea why pgp is not more common in that industry. It's completely insane. In some ways, you'd be better off sending your legal correspondence on a postcard with attorney/client priveledge disclaimer at the bottom.
> Case in point: just a few weeks ago Goldman Sachs mistakenly sent a sensitive email with account information to a random Gmail user because someone fumbled some keystrokes and sent to a “gmail.com” account instead of a “gs.com” account. The email contained such sensitive information that the only recourse Goldman had was to get a court order to require Google to retract the message. Just this month, the UK’s Information Commissioner “sounded the alarm” for lawyers in an attempt to get them to realize that unencrypted email is an unacceptable risk for privacy.
It is by far the weakest link in terms of law firm information security these days.
Maybe because pgp is still the same pain the butt it was back in the 90's. Nothing significant has been done to improve the user experience.
Meanwhile, roll forward to 2022 and there are now dozens of good quality secure document sharing platforms, all of which have full web, desktop and phone/tablet integration.
There are long established standards such as 802.1X which involves mutual TLS encryption for wifi. This is generally called "Enterprise WPA" or something like that. This means that all wifi traffic is encrypted to what I would call: a decent standard.
I hope your friend did a proper analysis of the wifi offering and didn't simply discount it out of hand because it is wifi.
There are a lot of issues here and the wifi vs wired thing is bloody complicated but make sure you understand all of the issues before pontificating about one vs the other ... 8)
(edit: 51 year old commentard here)
Wi-Fi is a shared medium in a crowded and noisy spectrum environment. I can see a dozen networks from my house, and I'm in a (dense) neighborhood of single family homes--it's much worse in a high rise office building. It can have decent bandwidth (almost a gigabit when it gets going) but reliability, latency, and jitter are bad.
I've had another neighbour buy a wireless landline from China that was because "sometimes the phone would crackle, and i hated that" meanwhile it would bring every 5ghz wifi network to its knees when she was taking a phone call.
So, there are other cases, maybe this is a bit more prevalent in countries closer to those with lax spectrum laws.
The licensed frequency bands, in contrast, are congestion free and more polite let’s say. I’d be willing to pay a monthly fee for use of one of those frequency bands. But good luck getting permission from the FCC to do that.
You mean a cordless phone?
> For both wired and wireless access, Google uses RADIUS servers to assign devices to an appropriate network, based on 802.1x authentication. We use dynamic, rather than static, VLAN assignment. This approach means that rather than relying on the switch/port static configuration, we use the RADIUS servers to inform the switch of the appropriate VLAN assignment for the authenticated device. Managed devices provide their certificate as part of this 802.1x handshake and are assigned to the unprivileged network, while unrecognized and unmanaged devices on the corporate network are assigned to a remediation or guest network. - https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...
Yes BeyondCorp does allow access to corporate resources outside of the intranet, but as part of a managed device + identity + network evaluation.
Then you do your "due diligence" etc. I think we should all understand at a fairly basic level how wifi and wired works and what to do.
Fire up the VPN!
If I were a corporation looking to hire a law firm, this would be a serious down-check for them, as I don't want the details of any cases they're handling for me exposed on a shared network.
This could also be considered weak protection of client-attorney communications, and get the state Bar Association involved.
Wifi 1 is for if you disconnect your laptop from ethernet then it automatically connects to the internal corporate WiFi network. This is great if you go to a conference room and need to access to your remote desktop session in the compute cluster.
Wifi 2 is for employees personal devices like mobile phones and is outside of the corporate network with no access to confidential data
Wifi 3 is for guests and vendors who need network access for a demonstration etc.
Wifi 2 for employee personal devices has the password on an internal website and it changes once a month
Wifi 3 changes passwords every 24 hours. It is only for vendors who need internet access to do a demo of their product. When we meet the vendor in a conference room we have to get the password off another web site and then they also get a wifi login screen where they have to list their company name and reason for visit etc.
I have no proof, but given the actions of one employer I believe 2 was for indirectly monitoring what people were doing on their personal devices.
May as well just use one outside the network AP for everyone, just an easy password everyone knows to prevent parking lot users.
Entry to the corporate network? That'd be the VPN (or wireguard, etc) just as if they were off site.
You are old enough (I assume) to remember really dodgy wifi but it has moved on and APs from nearly all vendors are really rather good. ISPs in the UK (I can't comment elsewhere obviously) have generally woken up to delivering really quite decent "hubs" instead of a shonky Thompson Rainbow type device. That said, even those have some mileage with a firmware change.
It's all about tools for the job. You know as well as I do what drywall/plasterboard does to wifi or what a skin of bricks does to wifi propagation, compared to generally wooden construction.
Yes, running a CATn cable will nearly always trump a wifi connection but it's fixed. I personally stick to CAT5e at home instead of 6 but I won't rule it out in future. 5e -> 1Gb/s over 100m. 6 ... which one? 6 is nominally 10Gb/s and 6A is 40 I think. 6A needs the shielding to be earthed properly.
I run most things over wifi if I can. My servers have fixed ethernet and things like my doorbell obviously get a PoE CAT5e connection. ... ... ... obviously!
Here I am with 12" thick stone walls and wifi can barely make it from the next room. I'm so glad the previous owner ran a little bit of ethernet cable!
Say what you will about ad tech, I think there’s no denying these are “serious” tech companies.
Their wifi was pretty ok though. I went a month or so without noticing that my personal usb nic had stopped working after an macOS update (needless to say, I'm not a fan of macs after experience using one at that job).
Work is done at a desk with a large display (or two) and a network port. The laptops come out for meetings, not coding.
Some people prefer hiding with their laptop and coding, but I find the added latency of wifi when using remote desktops is painful. Code is _not_ allowed on the laptop's storage.
Some people who do use laptops as primary machines will have a dock to let them use the wired network and large displays.
It depends on your job function, for sure, but I had to download multiple large device images each day, and having a 10G link was pretty convenient for doing that.
-written from my wifi connected laptop at Netflix
Apple basically just sells boutique whitegoods.
If any of these companies ceased to exist, it wouldn't inconvenience anyone other the shareholders.
true, hn'ers obviously excluded :)
> but you aren't putting food on tables
i tend to agree, but then again, most "value" is created by businesses that revolve around unnecessary things.
And the employees.
Staircase's ramp here at home is beautiful but the metallic balusters acts as a Faraday cage. Wife's MacBook M1 doesn't have an ethernet port either but she's using a little USB-C hub providing ethernet (and connection to a proper monitor): I think these adapters cost like $25 or something (my brother had one laying around and just gave it to me).
The line I use in the house is, "if it's staying in one place and can be wired, it should be." My iMac is wired, all the AppleTVs are (now) wired, Linux servers are wired, etc.
Weirdly, until the 4K launched, on the AppleTV 4's was actually faster to use wifi (they only had a 10/100 Ethernet port, but support 802.11ac.)
To be fair, Wifi has gotten a lot better than the bad ol' 802.11b and WEP days. My Unifi access points are fairly solid (even if the company behind them is acting less so recently) and I very rarely have any wifi problems that aren't specific to a device. Like printers. I constantly fight with printers falling off the wifi. But I just prefer to be wired if possible.
But wifi (just like other radio tech like 4G) has limited capacity, and that capacity is shared across all radio systems- this sounds obvious but when you realise how few devices can be talking simultaneously you will understand what an absolute pain this is.
Most of the huge gains in wifi technology (and 3g-4g) is not just making assumptions about what a signal is based on the leading and trailing edge of the wave of the transmission: mostly it’s about collision detection algorithms.
Collision detection, by necessity, adds undeterminable latency to your connection, it’s literally how it works.
So taking calls over wifi in a room full of people using wifi: you’re going to have a bad time. Worse: that room full of people is not _just_ that room full of people. Wifi works in 3 dimensions, you’ll be competing with your upstairs and downstairs neighbours too.
You aren't wrong [1], but at the same time you are missing that it is entirely possible to provision a wifi setup that can support a large number of devices in a small space. In an office setting, you should be incredulous if they don't have it right. But at home, with consumer networking gear (like the WSJ is talking about)? No way, ethernet is going to outperform it - it will be like night and day.
WiFi devices can support many devices in small spaces, but you will have increased latency and diminishing returns on throughput for the reasons I mentioned.
Downvolting radios will only get you so far.
>...must be magic.
i'd believe the second line if the first one were true, but fact is that although your experience may be very good, people have issues with WiFi constantly -- and more importantly; a lot of people are having issues without even realizing it.
An AP that hits 40% of it's projected performance metrics isn't down, but to say it is issue-free is malarkey.
Air-congestion is very real, and it affects all of us. Average latency is more chaotic now than it ever has been -- even if the low numbers are very low.
Is WiFi effective? Absolutely. I have no illusions that an office worker filling out spread-sheets is going to be totally hindered by a bit less predictable latency numbers -- I just think that it paints an incomplete picture by not realizing that we ARE losing something for the convenience of network-over-the-air.
And just to throw an anecdote out there , i'm often one of those conference room workers in one of the massive office buildings when contracted , and with a brand new XPS I still see all the same old issues with congested WiFi nearly everywhere I go. "Convention Wifi" is such a meme that most people expect it to fail 1st or 2nd day of any specific Con. It's not all that uncommon for me to encounter corporate groups that have specific APs for video conference that aren't allowed for general-employee use; the fact that this trend sprung up in the first place presumably indicates that not everyone is getting the performance they need from the arrangement.
IME wifi problems are purely administrator capability issue. And I've never seen anyone have a problem with mobile network due to wifi...
I would recommend spending 50 minutes of your life watching this: https://youtu.be/HRhZniqyey8
While many access points will state that they support 250+ clients, what they mean is that 250+ clients can theoretically be “connected” as in pinging the base station. Actual throughput will be limited.
Having worked in high density setups I simply cannot believe your experience. Even with low power and many APs there would be too much crosstalk/overlap. It cannot be the way you claim it to be unless you were 10 people and had isolation from other APs.
It's not much different from 4G mobile data working well at musical festivals with thousands of visitors.
IME from where I live, mobile data work well even when standing in the middle of protests of 10k people (many of them live streaming on FB and Instagram, sending selfies and photos and videos...). 100k becomes a problem though.
I'd -read- the shit out of the book if someone wrote it.
When I was a kid, my father had a small WISP. Even that (done with consumer-level hardware) was super interesting.
IMHO networking is surprisingly accessible though - it's well documented because the field is built on certifications.
I promise sincerely that this is the kind of naivity that I was referring to.
A single cell site has something like 36 "TRXs" (this is independent of 3/4g), but with 4G due to the fact there is better collision avoidance and a lot of work on the trailing and leading edges inferring meaning: you can have 36 calls without increased latency.
You will notice this.
And honestly, even most conference facilities are able to provide acceptable WiFi for attendees. --I've participated in meetings where 100 people would be in one room and we all had decent connections.
WiFi has it's problems in environments where the access point owners won't cooperate (home environments), but it's much better than it used to be.
that's either due to ignorance or negligence
OK but companies with a large enough IT department shall also have shitloads of employees / contractors using desktops plugged into ethernet all over the place.
They're not mutually exclusive.
Here's a speed test I just ran, on my home wi-fi:
Ethernet adds on a few hundred extra Mbps but I usually don't need that unless I'm downloading something huge.
WiFi in your business is for smart phones/tablets and guests.
Early on in my career, I made a living designing network solutions for companies. Warehouses and retail stores in particular needed large, highly available Wi-Fi networks. Some providers tried to build proprietary protocols/networks, but ultimately, they failed.
These days, I'd question working for, or doing work for a company WITHOUT Wi-Fi.
I am probably your age or older. I've interfaced with COBOL systems, for example...
That you're privileged enough to consider, even emotionally, the majority of the world's connections as 'toys' is something you should recognize. Way more SeriousBusiness happens on Wifi/Cell than I think you expect, and writing off that large (and growing) group is honestly ridiculous.
On the other end of the spectrum, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk, etc, did/do so much of their work on Wifi/Cell only that it seems insane to think that they are just doing 'toy' stuff as well.
I was on a plane about 10 years ago working on a global network of barometers for weather forecasting research using phones as sensors, and the flight attendant told me rudely to 'put away my toys now'. I've been upset at this ever since, so I'm sorry if this comes off as rude too, but honestly, wtf. I'm working on real stuff, nothing to do with 'toys', as are so many people.
Belittling the Wifi/Cell revolution is a mistake IMO.
If I were to be hired by a company and went into their office the first day, and they said, "so the corporate Wi-Fi SSID is..." well, I'd kind of not take them really seriously as a business. I realize with today's much better Wi-Fi and cellular technologies, that this is an emotional response and there's no rational facts behind the way I feel. Just an artifact of growing up with "wired = reliable".