Airlines rolling out inflight wi-fi

American Airlines is about to roll out inflight Wi-Fi for airline passengers. The service is called gogo, from Aircell. Aircell is the only company authorized by the FCC and FAA to use cellular frequencies for inflight communications, and holds 20 patents, according to Wikipedia, so you're not likely to see much competition in the space anytime soon. It's in testing now, and will be rolled out shortly. It's only offered between certain cities. (Flight must be over land, to transmit to and receive from the towers). American Airlines will offer it first, followed by Virgin. This site includes a video showing how this works, as well as a review by Walt Mossberg, who rated it at 600kbps down and 250kbps up. (It will be interesting to see how well the speed holds up, when there are more users). The service costs $13 for long flights, and $10 for medium flights. I guess airlines wanted to get this released so they'd have another revenue stream. In this economy with these high fuel prices, they need it.

Most data theft tied to basic security flaws

Just like locking your car doesn’t prevent a determined car thief from taking your ride but prevents the majority of casual joyriders from “borrowing” your wheels, basic computer security precautions will stop all but the most determined data thieves, according to a new study that finds that Most data theft tied to basic security flaws. As with most other approaches to security, such as physical or property security, the goal isn’t to prevent absolutely every type of attack or exploit -- which is basically impossible -- but to discourage all but the most determined bad guys. The typical data thief is not very technically sophisticated, but instead casts a broad net for easy pickings: computer systems without patches applied, without basic firewall services, without basic wireless security. The moral of this story? If you take the time to configure the most essential security precautions, you will prevent the vast majority of security exploits.