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There are basically two modes of networking:
• Infrastructure – All wireless clients will connect to an access point or wireless router.
• Ad-Hoc – Directly connecting to another computer, for peer-to-peer communication, using wireless network adapters on
each computer, such as two or more wireless network Cardbus adapters.
An Infrastructure network contains an Access Point or wireless router. All the wireless devices, or clients, will connect to the
wireless router or access point.
An Ad-Hoc network contains only clients, such as laptops with wireless cardbus adapters. All the adapters must be in Ad-Hoc
mode to communicate.
This section will show you the different levels of security you can use to protect your data from intruders. The router offers
wireless security options like WPA/WPA2 PSK/EAP.
WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), is a Wi-Fi standard that was designed to improve the security features of WEP (Wired Equiva-
lent Privacy).
The 2 major improvements over WEP:
• Improved data encryption through the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). TKIP scrambles the keys using a hashing
algorithm and, by adding an integrity-checking feature, ensures that the keys haven't been tampered with. WPA2 is based
on 802.11i and uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) instead of TKIP.
• User authentication, which is generally missing in WEP, through the extensible authentication protocol (EAP). WEP
regulates access to a wireless network based on a computer's hardware-specific MAC address, which is relatively simple
to be sniffed out and stolen. EAP is built on a more secure public-key encryption system to ensure that only authorized
network users can access the network.
WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK uses a passphrase or key to authenticate your wireless connection. The key is an alpha-numeric pass-
word between 8 and 63 characters long. The password can include symbols (!?*&_) and spaces. This key must be the exact
same key entered on your wireless router or access point.
WPA/WPA2 incorporates user authentication through the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). EAP is built on a more
secure public key encryption system to ensure that only authorized network users can access the network.
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