| Term |
Description |
| 3DES |
| 3DES (Triple DES) is a popular private key encryption method, based on DES, an ANSI Data Encryption Standard designed by IBM in the 1970s. Triple DES, or simply 3DES is a more secure version of the DES standard that encodes text three times, as opposed to just one. Exporting DES out of the U.S. or Canada is prohibited for those who don't meet the requirements of the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA). |
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| 802.11 |
802.11 is a family of specifications for WLANs (wireless local area networks) developed by the IEEE. The most widely used current specifications are 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a, in that order. All use the Ethernet protocol and CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance) for path sharing.
802.11 is also an IEEE legacy standard, a WLAN providing 1 or 2 Mbps transmission in the 2.4 GHz band using either FHSS or DSSS (frequency hopping or direct sequence spread spectrum) modulaion. |
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| 802.11a |
| 802.11a is a 802.11 WLAN (wireless LAN) extension that provides up to 54 Mbps in the 5GHz band. 802.11a uses an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing encoding scheme rather than FHSS or DSSS. |
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| 802.11b |
| 802.11b (also referred to as Wi-Fi) is a 802.11 WLAN (wireless LAN) extension that allows up to 11 Mbps transmission, with a fallback to 5.5, 2 and 1 Mbps. Wi-Fi works in the 2.4 GHz band, uses DSSS, and is comparable to Ethernet in functionality by allowing for (somewhat) high-speed, encrypted communication. |
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| 802.11e |
| 802.11e is a standard that defines QoS (Quality of Service) for wireless networks, to support Voice over IP, for example. |
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| 802.11g |
802.11g - 802.11 WLAN (wireless LAN) extenson that provides for up to 54 MBps raw data rate (24 Mbps useful throughput) in the 2.4 GHz band. It is expected to become the next mainstream WLAN technology.
802.11g defines the use of the 802.11a OFDM modulation technique and applies it in the 2.4 GHz 802.11b frequency band. The 802.11g draft standard requires backward compatibility with 802.11b. |
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| 802.11h |
| 802.11h is a supplement to 802.11a to make it meet European regulations on 5 GHz WLANs. |
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| 802.11i |
802.11i (a.k.a. WPA2) is a standard for wireless networks (ratified by IEEE 06.2004) that was specifically designed to provide better security than 802.11a/b/g.
The 802.11i standard introduces new encryption key protocols: TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). AES uses longer keys with a new algorigthm, and is much more processor-intensive than WEP.
802.11i is also being branded as WPA2. |
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| 802.11j |
| 802.11j is the Japanese equivalent of 802.11h. It is a supplement to 802.11a to make it meet Japanese requlations on 5 GHz WLANs. |
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| 802.11k |
| 802.11k - standard that addresses radio resource management to make more efficient use of WLAN resources. |
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| 802.11n |
| 802.11n is a proposed WLAN standard to increase the speed of 802.11a/b/g wireless networks to over 100 Mbps, while maintaining compatability. It is espected to be ratified by the end of 2006. |
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| 802.11r |
| 802.11r - this standard will address fast roaming among access points. |
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| 802.11s |
| 802.11s - standard for Mesh Wireless Networks. It aims to define a MAC and PHY for meshed networks that improve coverage with no single point of failure. |
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| 802.15 |
| 802.15 is a standard for personal area netwroks, based on Bluetooth. |
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| 802.16 |
| 802.16 defines specifications for fixed wireless broadband. |
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| 802.16a |
| 802.16a (a.k.a WiMax) is WLAN specification allowing for transfer of up to 70 Mbps over as much as 30 miles. |
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| 802.1x |
| 802.1x is an authentication scheme based on EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). |
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| 802.20 |
| 802.20 - proposal for 1 Mbps wireless metropolitan area networks. |
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| ad-hoc |
| ad-hoc mode (a.k.a peer-to-peer mode, or Independent Basic Service Set - IBSS) in wireless networking refers to a framework in which devices or stations communicate directly with each other, without the use of an access point. Ad-hoc mode is useful for establishing a network where access points do not exist. |
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| ADSL |
| ADSL (asymmetric DSL) is a type of Digital Subscriber line (DSL) that provides greater downstream(download from provider to consumer) bandwidth at the expense of lesser upstream (upload) speed. |
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| AES |
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard, a.k.a. Rijndael) is a symetric block cypher developed by belgian cryptographers Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen, that won the NIST's contest for a replacement of DES (Data Encryption Standard).
AES currently supports 128, 192 and 256-bit keys and encryption blocks, and can be extended in 32-bit multiples.
AES is usually used in WAP for protecting WLANS, and it reportedly has never been cracked. |
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| AIMD |
| AIMD (Additive Increase / Multiplicative Decrease) is the congestion control protocol used in TCP. It involves increase-by-one and decrease-to-half (per window of packets acknowledged) strategy for congestion window adjustment. |
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| ARP |
ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) is a protocol for mapping IP adresses to MAC (Media Access Control) physical machine adresses.
ARP uses an ARP cache table to maintain a correlation and convert between each MAC address and its corresponding IP address in both directions.
ARP is used in all Ethernet/IP networks to resolve IP addresses to physical device addresses. It is not routable. |
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| ARPANET |
| ARPAnet was a large WAN established in 1969, essentially the precursor to the Internet. ARPAnet was created by the US Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) to test new networking technologies. It originally linked UCLA and Stanford, followed by the University of Utah. |
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| ASCII |
| ASCII (American National Standard Code for Information Interchange) is the most common format for computer text files. In general, ASCII is the standard code for information interchange among dissimilar computers and computer programs, using a coded character set consisting of 7-bit coded characters (8 bits including parity check). |
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| ATM |
| ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a high-speed network protocol designed to support both voice and data communication. ATM is composed of 53 byte cells having 48 byte payloads, does not involve routing and is especially good for real time voice and video. DSL implementations often use ATM as the underlying data-transport protocol beneath TCP/IP. |
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| ATU |
ATU (ADSL Transceiver/Termination Unit) is a device that provides ADSL modulation of the telephone line, os simply an ADSL modem. The device at the server side is called ATU-C (Central office), the client's device is called ATU-R (Remote).
ATU-C/R are in essence the ADSL modems that sit on both sides of the telco copper loop. |
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| AWG |
| AWG (American Wire Gauge) is a measure of the thickness of wiring - the lower the AWG number, the thicker the wire. Generally, thicker wire can carry electrical current longer distances and is less susceptible to interference. |
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| backbone |
| The part of a communications network that handles the major traffic using the highest-speed, and often longest paths in the network. On the Internet, a backbone is a set of paths that local networks connect to for long-distance interconnection. |
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| backdoor |
| backdoor refers to a port/channel crackers use to access your system. As a rule, it might be easy for a skilled cracker to find a backdoor in a system that is insufficiently protected. |
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| Term |
Description |
Glossary
