User Guide BreadCrumb Wireless Network

Chapter 5. Using BCAdmin™

WEP

WEP (Wired Equivalency Protocol) was the ﬁrst scheme to provide security for 802.11 communications.

Although since its release it has been determined to contain serious weaknesses, WEP remains an

effective means to prevent casual eavesdropping.

WEP settings are made network-wide; all BreadCrumb devices and wireless clients must agree on a

WEP key in order to establish and maintain communications.

To enable WEP on a BCWN, make sure that all of the BreadCrumbs to conﬁgure are visible in

BCAdmin. Then choose Security, then WEP Settings to display the following window:

Figure 5-12. WEP Conﬁguration Window

1. WEP

This dropdown allows the administrator to enable or disable WEP on all BreadCrumb devices

currently visible in BCAdmin.

2. Key

A 40-bit or 104-bit hexadecimal key is speciﬁed in this ﬁeld. If this ﬁeld is left blank, WEP can be

enabled using a previously conﬁgured key.

Access Control Lists (ACLs)

A BCWN may be conﬁgured with a network-wide Access Control List (ACL) to specify a list of devices

to allow or disallow on the network. Each device communicating on the network (e.g., each BreadCrumb

radio or laptop radio card) has a unique identiﬁer known as a MAC address. ACLs consist of lists of

these addresses to specify permitted or forbidden devices.

When enabled, the ACL may be in two modes: Deny by Default and Allow by Default. In Deny by

Default mode, client devices and BreadCrumb devices are not permitted on the network unless they are