I have noticed that you are having a discussion regarding wireless security.
I have a Netgear WPNT834 Router.
The security options are
None WEP WPA-PSK (TKIP) WPA2-PSK (AES) WPA-PSK (TKIP) + WPA2-PSK (AES)
I have been using the last one because I assumed it was the most secure. Am I right? Why is there a combination of the two?
Not real knowledgeable about what I am asking. Runing WinXP Pro SP3.
Yep. I hate wireless security discussions.
Yep. The last one is probably the best.
The reason that there are two protocols listed is that there were (and probably still are) some client radios that can't or have trouble connectiong with WPA2-PSK(AES).
WPA-PSK(TKIP) was actually a minimal and temporary measure, to deal with the inadequacies of WEP until 802.11i was ready. The idea was the WPA-PSK(TKIP) could be implimented on a WEP system, without any hardware changes. 802.11i turned out to be sufficiently different from WPA-PSK(TKIP) that substantial changes to the hardware were required. Interestingly, it was assumed that a dedicated chip would be required to impliment AES, but many vendors have successfully done it in software, using faster microprocessors.
Due to this requirement for hardware support for AES, many older wireless clients will only do WPA-PSK(TKIP). In order for a wireless router to work with both ancient and modern hardware, both protocols are recognized and supported. That's why there are two listed.
Well, if all else fails, there's always Wikipedia:
Thanks for the nice informative reply.
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