Owner's Manual

Page 6

Wireless Networking with Nikon Cameras

DR AFT #4

Wireless Security

Security is a big concern when it comes to moving ﬁles and images around wire-

less networks. Nikon has built several features into the WT-1 Wireless Transmit-

ter to ensure that images are not compromised.

ESS-ID

The ﬁrst security measure is the use of ESS ID’s (Extended Service Set Identiﬁer

Identiﬁcations). An ESS ID is simply the name of the wireless network that the

device will join, if the correct name of the network is not entered into the remote

device (camera, computer, etc.) that device will not be able to connect to the

wireless network.

WEP Encryption

Wired Equivalent Privacy provides wireless networks with the same level of

security as that available with cabled networks. WEP works by encoding the data

to be transmitted and then it is decoded by the Access Point. The WT-1 supports

64 or 128 bit encryption keys. The higher the encryption key the more secure the

transmission, but also the slower the transfer speed. In general WEP encryption

will slow the 802.11 transmission rate by approximately 20%.

MAC Address Filtering

As mentioned before, the MAC address is a unique number to each device. For

ultimate security the MAC address of the WT-1 Transmitter could be added to

the ﬁlter list of the Access Point and then only that WT-1 would be allowed on

that wireless network.

Ad Hoc Mode

When using a Wireless Access Points and wireless cameras or computers the

network is called an “Infrastructure” mode network. Many WiFi devices can also

work in “Ad Hoc” mode which means that the 802.11 devices can communicate

directly to each other without the need for a Wireless Access Points. In Ad Hoc

mode a Nikon camera can directly send images to a laptop computer with a WiFi

card. This is ideal for photographers who simply want to send images without the

setup involved with a Wireless Access Points. Be aware that Ad Hoc mode does

not support any of the advanced security features. For Ad Hoc network setup, see

the section near the back of this guide.