Frank, your colleague's response was appropriate, IMO.
In a previous post showing how easy it was to penetrate WiFi networks, the most disturbing fact was that so few had bothered to implement any security at all.
What I find bothersome about use of unsecure wireless networks is that users may access corporate nets (for instance), using passwords, while their activities are being monitored.
Voilà. The keys to that particular castle. Or at least, past the moat.
Back around the late 90's there was a lot of talk about "masking complexity" with wireless - making it somewhat more like "plug and play". There has been progress. Still, I find most users have to work carefully and slowly implementing security. Few understand what they're doing well enough to be certain they've truly made their network secure.
But what does that matter, anyway, when so many users' practices are the Internet equivalent of unprotected sex at an orgy?
"The problem appears to be worsening all the time with no plausible reasons for hoping that it will reverse itself anytime soon, when you view it in the context of straight line capex dollar expenditures on systems and software, and the monies spent on the ongoing operating costs to improve the situation. Even if we set financial costs aside, we also face a certain loss in our freedom of movement, as well, which may prove to be an even higher price to pay in order to maintain reasonable levels of security."
Maybe it's worse than we think. There's no way to know.
One of the benefits of managed wireless networks like cellular telephony is that security is designed into, and maintained by operators. For end-users it's even better than plug and play - but only because security is taken out of the hands of individuals.
Perhaps security and the Nirvana of untrammelled Internet access are antithetical to most end-users: the public. Maybe they just can't be taught.
If that's the case, then managed networks and walled gardens are the future. So many assets are exposed, right now.
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