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Steward Observatory Wireless Networking

Introduction:

Steward Observatory has an open wireless network, providing limited network access. This wireless 802.11b network is availble in the main Steward buildings, near the main conference rooms and meeting areas.

Usage:

This Steward Hot Spot network is provided as a courtesy for staff, students and guests of Steward Observatory and the Department of Astronomy.

To use the wireless network, you should have a computer with a wireless adapter which supports either 802.11b or 802.11g protocols. You should then be able to associate your computer with the "StewardHotSpot" network. Your computer should be set up to automatically get it's network information via DHCP. Once your machine is associated, open a web browser and direct it to a URL such as http://www.as.arizona.edu (make sure to use the http protocol). You will be redirected to a web page with warnings and instructions for registering your machine. You must accept the agreement, or you will not be allowed network access.

After registering please make sure to refresh any web pages to make sure you are not seeing pages from your browser's cache. The wireless network should work with any operating system which supports 802.11b. MS Windows, MacOS and Linux machines have all been tested and found to work.

Once you are registered, you should have limited network access for about 8 hours. You will be restricted to normal web browsing, and ssh or openssh connections. Limited e-mail access, using secured protocols such as secure pop3 and secure imap, are allowed. SMTP and secured SMTP are also allowed, but sending mail is throttled down to prevent a wireless connection being used for sending SPAM. Outgoing messages will also be filtered to help prevent the spread of e-mail viruses.

Other connections, such as ftp will be blocked. If you must use some other network connection, we suggest using ssh to setup a tunnel to your remote server for the protocol.

WARNINGS:

The StewardHotSpot network is unencrypted. This means that it is very easy for anyone to intercept your wireless communications. You should make sure that you either do not care if your network traffic is seen (such as most web browsing), or your application encrypts its traffic (such as ssh).

In this type of wireless network, your machine is also open to attack by other wireless machines. This means you should make sure your computer has the latest security patches installed, as well as an appropriate firewall configured.

Since there is no encryption on the network, it is best to assume that someone is watching anything you transmit. It is also possible for various types of computer attacks, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, so do not use the wireless network for sensitive traffic. If you suspect that your computer is being attacked, please contact a member of the Computer Support Group as soon as possible.

For assistance with using the wireless network, please contact a member of the Computer Support Group.



All contents copyright © 2007. Arizona Board of Regents.