Lull in Action Is Time to Tie Up Loose Ends

Computerworld - My company's quarter-end blackout always means we're in for a slow week, since we can't make any changes to our production environment. When I have some extra time like that, I usually like to catch up on documentation and evaluate new technology, and that's what I did when this past quarter ended.
As I've mentioned in previous articles , our mass deployment of RSA Security Inc.'s SecurID tokens is a critical project, touching thousands of users. Failure is not an option, and the definition of failure could include a deployment that generates thousands of help desk support calls. To keep that from happening, documentation and training are part of the deployment strategy.
Happily, I was able to get some cycles from another department's technical writer, who created some Web content about two-factor authentication that can eventually be made available to the masses. If we start raising awareness early and drill some of the new lingo associated with this project into employees' heads, the deployment will have a better shot at success.
There are three important terms users must be familiar with. The first is tokencode, which refers to the number displayed on a token. The next is PIN, which is the personal identification number each user will define and use as a password. The third term is passcode, which the PIN and tokencode combine to form.
Those three terms are the usual causes of support calls in a SecurID rollout, and we want to clear up confusion beforehand so that users don't beset the help desk. We also hope to curb the number of support calls by finding a way to deploy the software tokens without users having to do anything other than set their PINs. We're diligently working on that, and I will report on our progress in my next installment.
WAP Strategy Session
On another front, I've been talking to Alpharetta, Ga.-based AirDefense Inc., which has an appliance for detecting rogue wireless access points that integrates with the Cisco access points we have already deployed en masse. I received one of the appliances to evaluate today, and I managed to get it racked and powered and will start testing within the next week or so. I also received several access points from Cisco that I will configure as sensors.
AirDefense claims that when the Cisco sensors discover an access point, its appliance can determine whether it's on our network.
I plan to deploy some low-cost access points that I ordered from Office Depot. I figure that employees who