Check out the new USENIX Web site.

USENIX Home . About USENIX . Events . membership . Publications . Students
13th USENIX Security Symposium — Abstract

Pp. 207–222 of the Proceedings

Network-in-a-Box: How to Set Up a Secure Wireless Network in Under a Minute

Dirk Balfanz, Glenn Durfee, Rebecca E. Grinter, Diana K. Smetters, and Paul Stewart, PARC

Abstract

Combining effective security and usability is often considered impossible. For example, deploying effective security for wireless networks is a difficult task, even for skilled systems administrators - a fact that is impeding the deployment of many mobile systems.

In this paper we describe a system that lets typical users easily build a highly secure wireless network. Our main contribution is to show how gesture-based user interfaces can be applied to provide a complete solution for securing wireless networks. This allows users to intuitively manage the network security of their mobile devices, even those with limited user interfaces. We demonstrate through user studies that our secure implementation is considerably easier to use than typical commercially available options, even those that provide lower security. Our gesture-based approach is quite general, and can be used to design a wide variety of systems that are simultaneously secure and easy to administer.

  • View the full text of this paper in HTML and PDF.
    Click here if you have forgotten your password Until August 2005, you will need your USENIX membership identification in order to access the full papers. The Proceedings are published as a collective work, © 2004 by the USENIX Association. All Rights Reserved. Rights to individual papers remain with the author or the author's employer. Permission is granted for the noncommercial reproduction of the complete work for educational or research purposes. USENIX acknowledges all trademarks within this paper.

  • If you need the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it from Adobe's site.
To become a USENIX Member, please see our Membership Information.

?Need help? Use our Contacts page.

Last changed: 27 July 2004 aw
Technical Program
Security '04 Home
USENIX home