CREATIVE Network Blaster Wireless Access Point Router CW2202 - Manual (Page 62)

Glossary E-9
TCP/IP
(Transmission
Control Protocol/
Internet Protocol) A suite of communication protocols that are used by computers or networking
devices on the Internet so that they can communicate with each other. TCP/IP
uses several protocols, the two main being TCP and IP.
Twisted pair cable A cable that consists of two wires twisted together. This cable is less expensive but
more brittle than a coaxial cable.
USB (Universal
Serial Bus) A plug-and-play interface that allows the user to attach a device without having to
add an adapter card and turning off the computer.
WAN (Wide Area
Network) A computer network that spans a relatively large geographical area. Typically, a
WAN consists of two or more LANs.
WEP (Wired
Equivalent Privacy) A wired security policy defined by the IEEE 802.11 working group. WEP uses the
RC-4 40-bit encryption algorithm to scramble all data before it is transmitted.
Vendors add proprietary encryption features to their software, taking the
encryption level up to 128 bits.
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is promoted by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA). It
places a stamp of certification on wireless products that are interoperable with
other 802.11b compliant products.
WPA (Wi-Fi
Protected Access) WPA is derived from the IEEE 802.11i standard and is designed to address the
vulnerabilities inherent in WEP. WPA offers users a greater level of data protection
through the use of its Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), which introduces
significant data encryption enhancements such as a per-packet key mixing
function, a message integrity check (MIC), an extended initialization vector (IV)
with sequencing rules, and a re-keying mechanism.