Network Security: Know It All

Chapter 7. Security in Wireless Systems

Introduction

Although radio has existed for almost 100 years, most of the population uses wireline phones. Only over the last 30 years have large numbers of people used wireless or cordless phones. With this exposure, users of wireless phones and the news media have challenged two bedrocks of the telecommunications industry: privacy of conversation and billing accuracy.

The current concepts of privacy of communications and accuracy of billing are based on the telephone company’s ability to route an individual pair of wires to each residence and office. Thus, when a call is placed on a pair of wires, the telephone company can correctly associate the call on a wire with the correct billing account [1–4]. Similarly, ...