Re: A couple of minor issues with NM

[Timothy Murphy <tim birdsnest maths tcd ie>]

On Sunday 24 December 2006 21:43, Matthew Saltzman wrote:

> There are two things that involve keys in your wireless link:
> authentication (are you allowed to connect to the access point) and
> encryption (is the data you send and receive over the air encrypted).  If
> you use WEP, then your data is encrypted.  In an "open" system, you are
> allowed to connect no matter what, but you can't send or receive data
> without a key in common with the access point.  In a "shared-key" system,
> you must have a key in common with the access point in order to connect at
> all and a key to share data.  These could be the same, but then I don't
> think you get much additional security from a shared-key arrangement.

Thanks very much.
I was confused about this, but now am completely clear.

As I said, it hasn't really affected my experience,
as I haven't been using any key when connecting -
or trying to connect - to the Linksys WRT54GL.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland