ZyXEL Communications 320W User Manual

 

All contents copyright (c) 2005 ZyXEL Communications Corporation.   

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1. Introduction   

The 802.11 standard describes the communication that occurs in wireless LANs. 

The Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) algorithm is used to protect wireless communication from 

eavesdropping, because wireless transmissions are easier to intercept than transmissions over wired 

networks, and wireless is a shared medium, everything that is transmitted or received over a wireless 

network can be intercepted. 

WEP relies on a secret key that is shared between a mobile station (e.g. a laptop with a wireless Ethernet 

card) and an access point (i.e. a base station). The secret key is used to encrypt packets before they are 

transmitted, and an integrity check is used to ensure that packages are not modified during the transition.