User's Manual

B-6 Psion Teklogix Omnii Hand-Held Computer User Manual
Appendix B: Wireless Zero Config
Wireless Information Tab
• Ad Hoc And Infrastructure: If you are using an Infrastructure network—one in which
the hand-helds must pass data through an access point—leave the checkbox next to This
is an ad hoc network blank.
If you are using an Ad Hoc network—a network in which the hand-helds pass data
directly to other Ad Hoc devices without an access point—add a checkmark in the
checkbox next to This is an ad hoc network to enable Ad Hoc.
• Encryption: WEP (Wired-Equivalent Privacy) encryption prevents others from acci-
dentally accessing your network. If you are not using encryption, you can choose
Disabled from the drop-down encryption menu. Otherwise, leave this field as is.
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a standard for protecting data through encryp-
tion. AES supports key sizes of 128 bits, 192 bits and 256 bits and will serve as a
replacement for the Data Encryption Standard (DES), which has a key size of 56 bits. In
addition to the increased security that comes with larger key sizes, the AES algorithm is
a symmetrical block cipher that can encrypt (encipher) and decrypt (decipher)
information.
• Authentication: 802.11 supports several subtypes of network authentication services:
Open, Shared, WPA, and WPA-PSK. Under Open authentication, any wireless station
can request authentication. The station that needs to authenticate with another wireless
station sends an authentication management frame that contains the identity of the
sending station. The receiving station then sends back a frame that indicates whether it
recognizes the identity of the sending station.
Under Shared authentication, each wireless station is assumed to have received a secret
shared key over a secure channel that is independent from the 802.11 wireless network
communications channel.
Under WPA and WPA-PSK authentication, the use of 802.1x authentication is required.
For wireless networks without a Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service
(RADIUS) infrastructure, WPA supports the use of a preshared key. For wireless net-
works with a RADIUS infrastructure, Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) and
RADIUS is supported.
• Network Key: This text box is used to specify a 5 or 13 ASCII character sequence or an
equivalent 10 or 26 Hexadecimal digit sequence that matches the active WEP key on the
access point.
To assign a Network key, highlight The key is provided automatically, and uncheck
the checkbox to disable this option.
Important: Keep in mind that Omnii will only communicate with access points that are
configured with the same SSID.