When the task at hand is to evaluate a proposed secure wireless device or its architecture, one nowhas a quick list of criteria by which to judge the device or its architecture. Conversely, if the task is to maximize one or more parameters, again the 12-parameter model suggests a series of trade-offs that will facilitate the analysis of the device or its architecture, via specific constraints. By crude analogy, if one must travel from City A to City B in the least expensive way, the traveler had best be prepared for some risks, delays, and hardships along the way, as he or she is most probably not traveling in high style.

Reshuffling values for these parameters is a classical optimization problem, and some clearly require an agreed-upon method and technique of quantification. Engineers routinely are confronted with trade-offs and are bound by detailed budget or performance specification constraints.

In subsequent pages, this high-level approach is called the Wireless Embedded Architecture Security Evaluation List model, and for those who like funny acronyms, this one resolves to WEASEL. The model does not offer an exhaustive microelectronic design list of trade-offs, but does serve as the proverbial 50,000-foot view of architectural choices that one is expected to cope with.