While physical security was tightened to unprecedented levels here last week for the Republican National Convention, IT security researchers uncovered an unsettling number of unencrypted wireless devices that they said created a potential information security nightmare for convention organizers and delegates.

During a two-hour "war drive" around the site of the RNC as well as Manhattan's financial district, security researchers from Boston-based Newbury Networks Inc. discovered more than 7,000 wireless devices, 1,123 of which were located within blocks of Madison Square Garden, including a network named "Wireless for Kerry." More important, 67% of those devices were access points that didn't have any built-in encryption protection.

By Dan Verton at Computerworld.

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