IOGear Wireless-N GWU623 User Manual
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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 fi xes the problems of WEP, including using dynamic keys.
Wide Area Network (WAN)
A WAN consists of multiple LANs that are tied together via telephone services and / or fi ber optic cabling.
WANs may span a city, a state, a country, or even the world.
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
Now widely recognized as fl awed, 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 insuffi cient 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.