Don't Bother Me With Details, Part 1

"Details, details. Things to do. Things to get done. Don't bother me with details, just tell me when they're done" is a famous quote from the character Jimmy Price (played by Kenneth Cranham) in the 2004 crime film Layer Cake. 

"Don't bother me details" sounds like a crisp, clear, leader-like thing to say. It implies that your underlings are boring you with unnecessary detail and that you are not going to fall for that. You have things to do--better things to do than listen to nerds go on about nerd stuff.

As a professional nerd, I have been on the other end of this dynamic pretty often, which is why I keep getting asked by well-meaning non-nerds "why is my technologist colleague so annoyed with me?" This is the first of what will be an intermittent and, I hope, infrequent series in which I give examples of just how this crisp, clear, leader-like attitude is so frustrating and infuriating and how it can be utterly wrong-minded.

Are there boring technologists? Yes. Do we, as a group, overestimate the level of interest non-nerds have in what fascinates us? Also yes. Do these fact grant a blanket license to tune us out when we give you the explanations that you demand? NO. Once again for those who are not really paying attention. No, no, no, no, NO.

Let's get concrete. A while back an exec who is a pal wanted to know why a colleague in IT was so frustrated that the exec had taken matters into his own hands and put in a Wireless Access Point (WAP). Apparently, because you can now buy these at office supply stores, they are no longer network nodes but rather appliances that anyone can buy and set up and use. So what's the big deal? IT should be grateful that this job was done for them, right? (This WAP was hidden in a drop-down ceiling which might have been a convenient place to store it but also might have been a clue that the innocent WAP deployers suspected that they were being naughty.)

The big deal was a layer cake of IT unhappiness:

Security

WiFi is hard to secure, so IT people very often go to great lengths to segregate WiFi network segments. Often these segments are "public" or "guest" which is how IT people say "use this at your own peril."

This segregation from corporate assets is for your protection, not because we don't like you or don't understand WiFi. By secure, I mean "restricted unauthorized access" which is either done physically (see Signal Propagation below) or via credentials (what this section discusses). Do you want security configured by random people? Probably not. Do you want to be exposed to attack in ways that your cybersecurity program cannot control or monitor? Definitely not. Is it ok to set up your own little network? I really, really doubt it. It is  a good idea to browbeat IT into providing an internal network segment that is over WiFi for your convenience? No. Cybersecurity is about minimizing risk, not exercising authority.

Support

Once you connect a WAP to a wired network this changes the network "topology" drastically, breaking our assumptions and making supporting and debugging the network much, much harder. For reasons too boring to go into here (see what I did there?) a random WiFi segment opens up many holes that one can only hope will not be exploited. This is true no matter who does the connecting or the intentions of those doing the connecting. Just because you have the power to force someone to provide you with WiFi doesn't make that a good idea. Cybersecurity is about results, not intentions.

Signal Propagation

WiFi signals are generated in curved spaces, depending on the shape and size and directions of the antenna. These shapes are often called "lobes." Making the lobes go where you want them to--and not where you don't--is really hard. Doing that often requires meters and maps. Fiddling with the antenna until you get a strong signal at your desk isn't good enough. You will likely blast some uncontrolled area with great reception, making a mockery of security. I have been in men's rooms and stairwells that had fantastic (and unsecured) WiFi because an ignoramus set up the WiFi and had no idea how big the main lobe was (see below), or wrongly felt that walls are impenetrable to WiFi.

(Yes, I often walk around places of work using my phone as a crude way to measure WiFi coverage and I do judge you for unintended coverage.)

Many people think of WiFi signals as a tent that surrounds the WAP. Alas, this is not the way the physics plays out. At the risk of boring you with very relevant detail, here is a rather typical antenna's broadcast pattern:

Image credit: By Timothy Truckle - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4245213

If you don't know what you are doing, you will figure that the signal near the WAP (the side lobes) is the whole deal and will be baffled as to why people rather far from the WAP have better signal strength (in the main lobe or the back lobe) then those close to the WAP but off by a few degrees.

The ugly truth is that unless your desks form a line along the corridor of the main lobe and back lobe, you are wasting bunch of signal. It can't be helped. This means that you are likely providing signal in the main lobe far beyond where you expect. You are likely providing signal behind the WAP beyond where you expect in the back lobe. You are unlikely to be providing signal exactly where you think you are. If you  don't want to be bothered with details but demand coverage through a big area, IT will have to have many antennas with multiple main lobes and back lobes. The coverage in your office will be terrific, but this is how you end up providing WiFi in the bathrooms and stairwells and corridors and elevators.

Conclusion

If this is more about how WiFi signals get around than you ever wanted to know then you can imagine how frustrating it is trying to explain the dangers of WiFi to you. You can't see or hear or taste or touch WiFi. You just have to trust your IT folks that if you force them to blast WiFi around the office it is unlikely that you understand the ramifications of what you are asking. And if an unlucky technologist or cybersecurity drone launches into an explanation of lobes and signal propagation and credentials and DHCP and bridging and routing and your eyes glaze over, try to remember that we aren't paid to entertain you or educate you. We are paid to make things work in a safe manner. If we don't leap to obey, to provide the service to which you feel entitled, remember that we might have a good reason. If you are particularly mature, you might even be open to the idea that we don't want to bore you and we don't want to deny you service, but sometimes we feel that we have no other safe option.

This phenomenon is not limited to WiFi of course; feel free to swap in whatever technological arcana you prefer.

Please don't shut us down any variation of "don't bother me details." We yearn to just say no, to shrug in reply, to roll our eyes and sigh instead. If we are boring you at least we are engaging with you. The alternative to bothering you with details is usually a curt refusal and we are pretty sure you won't like that either.