TidBITS recently published an article by Adam Engst, the co-author of The Wireless Networking Starter Kit, about assessing the need for security on your home wireless network. Engst uses "three Ls" in his methodology:

• Likelihood: "How likely is that someone will violate your privacy, steal your belongings, or otherwise exploit you?"
• Liability: "What is the realistic liability if someone were to record all the traffic that passed across your wireless network?"
• Lost Opportunity: "With home wireless networks, the opportunity cost comes mostly in the form of troubleshooting irritating problems, which is more necessary and harder when security is on, and in the annoyance of dealing with passwords with new machines or when you have visitors."

This is a thoughtfully written article that's worth passing along to people who just plugged in their WiFi router, configured it, and forgot about it. [ via Wi-Fi Networking News ]