Shouldn't the title be "Their wireless devices are on your network"?

Have I missed the point of the article completely? Isn't this the same scenario as laptops equiped with wireless facilities? Sysadmins have been dealing with these for the past who-knows-how-many years so what's so special about smartphones?

My oh my, is access control so difficult?

"It is not a question of whether you let users access their data"

Yes it is, at least as far as user owned devices are concerned. It's not their data, it is company data. If a company cannot restrict who, how and when company data is accessed, then any data exposure or theft is a problem of their own making.

Filter access to IT resources by MAC address. Only company owned devices allowed access.

Yes a MAC address can be spoofed. But that should be considered a breach of computer usage/security policy and dealt with accordingly.

Locking down networks and resource to casual connections from what I would consider rogue devices... Wifi enabled phones, USB devices, etc. In fact any unauthorised hardware of any type not under control of the business is easy. Although this might incur additional investment in competent IT security staff and hardware.

A personal device under the control of the user should be considered insecure and never allowed to connect to a business network. If a user needs a mobile device to perform their duties, the business should provide them with one that is under control of the business and locked down.

I certainly wouldn't allow a device that is open to browse any site on the Internet to connect to a company network.

It's not about unauthenticated devices.

I have just finished writing the last article on my on sysadmin blog contract here for El Reg. Oddly enough, I seem to have glommed on completely independently to the same theme as is going through the recent spate of Freeform dynamics articles. (I wasn’t directed to write about mobile devices, I swear!)

Unless the freeform guys are on a completely different track than I am, this isn’t about devices being on your network without corporate authorisation. The point of the discussion is that Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), be they smartphones, tablets or what-have-you are here to stay. As systems administrators, we might build up the sandbags for a while…but we can’t hold back the mobile computing tide forever. These devices will eventually be part of the corporate computing landscape and no amount of handwringing or whinging on our parts will change this. Eventually, we will be directed to allow thier use and even to support them in an official capacity.