User guide

802.11 Wireless Networking  97
Network Security Concepts
The 802.11 standard refers to peer-to-peer network connectivity as ad-hoc mode. See
“Specify the Network Type” on page 74, “Adding a Network Description” on
page 59, and “Specify the Association Mode” on page 75“Specifying an Association
Mode” on page 60 for information about configuring ad-hoc network connections.
Wireless Network Names
Each wireless network has a name. The 802.11 standard refers to a network name
as service set identifier (SSID). You can select the wireless network to which you
want to connect by specifying its name.
Network names allow for the coexistence of more than one wireless network in the
same vicinity. For example, the company next door to yours might use wireless
networking. Network names allow you to distinguish access points located within
your enterprise wireless network from access points that are not within your
corporate LAN.
Network names do not offer any security and cannot prevent you from connecting
to a phony network.
A network name is a text sequence up to 32 characters long, such as Bayonne
Office, Acme-Marketronics, or BE45789. A network name is case-sensitive. You
always have the option to scan for available networks. Scanning enables you to
select the network from a list, preventing any data entry errors.
Wired-Equivalent Privacy
You can use wired-equivalent privacy (WEP) to encrypt data transferred between
your client device and the access point. When you use WEP for data encryption,
you can configure access point association in one of two modes:
 Shared—Use this mode when the access point requires that you preconfigure a
WEP key for association. When 802.11-based preconfigured (static) WEP keys
are in use, the client and the access point share the same secret keys and a
client is not allowed to access the network unless it can prove it knows the
preconfigured WEP keys assigned to the access point. This is not as secure as
authenticating with 802.1X methods. See “802.1X Authentication” on page 99.
You can configure shared association according to directions in “Network
Properties” on page 70.
 Open—Use this mode for WEP-based data encryption when the access point
does not require that you preconfigure a static WEP key for association. You
can configure open association according to directions in “Network Properties”
on page 70.
NOTE: You can obtain stronger network security when you use dynamic
encryption key generation and 802.1X-based authentication. For shared
association, a preconfigured key that is used only for access point association is
still required. See “802.1X Authentication” on page 99 and “Extensible
Authentication Protocol” on page 100 for more information.