Cornell's technical engineers are working full time to improve data privacy -- especially in the use of wireless. RedRover-Secure, Cornell's newest wireless network service, offers a much greater degree of privacy during wireless transactions than ever before.

"Wireless usage is rapidly increasing on campus," said Ed Kiefer, Cornell Information Technologies' (CIT) assistant director of voice and data engineering. "In the libraries, it's often the primary means of computer connectivity. If wireless is your primary means and you're not using RedRover-Secure, your data is easily captured out of the air."

Unlike its predecessors RedRover, which did not provide a secure wireless network, and RedRover-Guest, the wireless service offered to guests of the university who do not have Cornell NetIDs, RedRover-Secure encrypts wireless data transmissions. RedRover-Secure is available everywhere that standard RedRover and RedRover-Guest can be accessed.

CIT recommends all current RedRover users move to RedRover-Secure as soon as possible. CIT's goal is to have more than 50 percent of RedRover users using RedRover-Secure over the next year.

"Use it. We want to know what you do and do not like about RedRover-Secure," said Dave Barr, RedRover's wireless program manager.

What makes RedRover-Secure secure against snooping and prying is WiFi protected-access (WPA) technology that encrypts transmissions with strong and constantly changing keys and incorporates special features to resist break-ins. RedRover-Secure uses the university's central identity management system for authentication, making a secure connection easy to use.

Why is RedRover-Secure important to Cornell? "Primarily because WPA improves the privacy of wireless communications, and it is incumbent on the university to protect its data resources and communications appropriately," said Barr. "To access confidential university data via wireless, you must use a secure connection and properly secured applications."

To prepare for making secure wireless available across campus, CIT partnered with the College of Veterinary Medicine last fall on a pilot project that tested the use of e-tablets and laptops to access RedRover-Secure encrypted sensitive medical records and radiology images.

"We're happy with the functionality of secure wireless," said Shari Avery, director of information technology at the Vet College. "We eventually plan to implement RedRover-Secure throughout all of the buildings in the Vet College complex."

To switch to RedRover-Secure, visit http://www.cit.cornell.edu/redrover/secure/ for instructions and links to download software. Windows users will need to download software called a supplicant; Macintosh users with version 10.3 and above already have a native supplicant installed. The best practice is to set the computer's default wireless system to RedRover-Secure while on campus.

One word of caution: Technology that uses the Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) band (2.4 gigahertz frequency) -- including cordless telephones, wireless web cameras and wireless headsets -- will interfere with RedRover-Secure, causing users to be logged off multiple times during the same session.

Kiefer recommends that every wireless user on campus do as he does. "I always run secure. I don't even think about this. You're taking unnecessary risks with your data and passwords by not using RedRover-Secure."

Leslie Intemann is a technical communicator with Cornell Information Technologies.