Summary

Like rock ‘n’ roll, wireless technologies are here to stay. And for those of us who have come to depend on wireless technologies, it’s actually pretty hard to imagine a world without wireless networks—what did we do before cell phones?

So we began this chapter by exploring the essentials and fundamentals of how wireless networks function. Springing off that foundation, I then introduced you to the basics of wireless radio frequencies (RFs) and the IEEE standards. We discussed 802.11 from its inception through its evolution to current and near-future standards and talked about the subcommittees who create these standards.

All of this led into a discussion of wireless security—or rather, nonsecurity for the most part—which we went over in detail.

We finished the chapter by bringing you up to speed on TKIP and WPA/WPA2 security solutions—important tools used to protect the wireless LANs of today.