11. Security Considerations

Some remarks about security can be made.

Pegs are small devices and can be lost. At that time, the IP-number which was lost can't be used anymore because someone else can find the peg and use the information stored on it. But, once the peg is attached to a network cable, the chance to loose the peg is minimized.

All the information on both the peg and on the additional 'fixed' fields on the paper record are plain text and readable for everyone. Private information should not be exchanged through this protocol.

On the client side all sorts of clients exist and cooperate freely. Due to the human factor of the clients transferring information from peg to IP stack, the information can be misinterpreted, which could cause network troubles. In the field test at HIP this became perfectly clear when someone mixed up the numbers and used the address from the default router as his IP-number, rendering the network useless for a period of time.