User's Manual

A WAN consists of multiple LANs that are tied together via telephone
services and / or fiber optic cabling. WANs may span a city, a state, a country,
or even the world.
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
Now widely recognized as flawed, WEP was a data encryption method used
to protect the transmission between 802.11 wireless clients and APs. However,
it used the same key among all communicating devices. WEP's problems are
well-known, including an insufficient key length and no automated method
for distributing the keys. WEP can be easily cracked in a couple of hours with
off-the-shelf tools.
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
The Wi-Fi Alliance put together WPA as a data encryption method for 802.11
wireless LANs. WPA is an industry-supported, pre-standard version of
802.11i utilizing the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), which fixes the
problems of WEP, including using dynamic keys.
Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP)
The Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, pronounced tee-kip, is part of the IEEE
802.11i encryption standard for wireless LANs. TKIP is the next generation of
WEP, the Wired Equivalency Protocol, which is used to secure 802.11 wireless
LANs. TKIP provides per-packet key mixing, a message integrity check and a
re-keying mechanism, thus fixing the flaws of WEP.
Wi-Fi Alliance
The Wi-Fi Alliance is a nonprofit international association formed in 1999 to
certify interoperability of wireless Local Area Network products based on
IEEE 802.11 specification. The goal of the Wi-Fi Alliance's members is to
enhance the user experience through product interoperability. The
organization is formerly known as WECA.
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