Wireless network and methods for communicating in a wireless network

摘要

Wireless network and method for communicating in same. More specifically, techniques for improving over-the-air transmissions in networks implementing wired-equivalent privacy (WEP) security protocols. In one embodiment, during transmission of an encrypted data packet, the standard initialization vector field in the header of an encrypted data packet does not include the corresponding initialization vector used to encrypt the data packet. Further, the initialization vector is composed as a function of other data packets which are transmitted before the encrypted data packet that implemented the corresponding initialization vector. A receiving node reconstructs the initialization vector using the previously transmitted data packets. Accordingly, the receiving node is able to decrypt data packets without receiving an initialization vector along with the corresponding data packet that was encrypted with the initialization vector.