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IEEE - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The IEEE
describes itself as “the world's largest technical professional society—promot-
ing the development and application of electrotechnology and allied sciences
for the benefit of humanity, the advancement of the profession, and the well-
being of our members.”
The IEEE fosters the development of standards that often become national and
international standards. The organization publishes a number of journals, has
many local chapters, and has several large societies in special areas, such as the
IEEE Computer Society.
Infrastructure - An infrastructure network is a wireless network or other small
network in which the wireless network devices are made a part of the network
through an Access Point that connects them to the rest of the network.
IP Address - In the most widely installed level of the Internet Protocol (IP)
today, an IP address is a 32-binary digit number that identifies each sender or
receiver of information that is sent in packets across the Internet. When you
request an HTML page or send e-mail, the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP
includes your IP address in the message (actually, in each of the packets if more
than one is required) and sends it to the IP address that is obtained by looking
up the domain name in the Uniform Resource Locator you requested or in the
e-mail address you're sending a note to. At the other end, the recipient can see
the IP address of the Web page requester or the e-mail sender and can respond
by sending another message using the IP address it received.
IPCONFIG - A utility that provides for querying, defining and managing IP
addresses within a network. A commonly used utility, under Windows NT and
2000, for configuring networks with static IP addresses.
IPSec - IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) is a developing standard for securi-
ty at the network or packet processing layer of network communication. A big
advantage of IPSec is that security arrangements can be handled without
requiring changes to individual user computers.
ISP - An ISP (Internet service provider) is a company that provides individuals
and companies access to the Internet and other related services such as website
building and virtual hosting.
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DNS - The Domain Name System (DNS) is the way that Internet domain
names are located and translated into Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. A
domain name is a meaningful and easy-to-remember “handle” for an Internet
address.
DSSS - Also known as “Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum,” this is a variety of
radio transmission methods that continuously change frequencies or signal pat-
terns. Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), which is used in CDMA,
multiplies the data bits by a very fast, pseudo-random bit pattern (PN sequence)
that “spreads” the data into a large coded stream that takes the full bandwidth
of the channel
Dynamic IP Address - An IP address that is automatically assigned to a client
station in a TCP/IP network, typically by a DHCP server. Network devices that
serve multiple users, such as servers and printers, are usually assigned static IP
addresses.
ESS - More than one BSS in a network.
FHSS - Also known as “Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum.” Frequency
Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) continuously changes the center frequency
of a conventional carrier several times per second according to a pseudo-ran-
dom set of channels, while chirp spread spectrum changes the carrier frequen-
cy. Because a fixed frequency is not used, illegal monitoring of spread spec-
trum signals is extremely difficult, if not downright impossible depending on
the particular method.
Firewall - A firewall is a set of related programs, located at a network gateway
server, that protects the resources of a network from users of other networks.
(The term also implies the security policy that is used with the programs.) An
enterprise with an intranet that allows its workers access to the wider Internet
installs a firewall to prevent outsiders from accessing its own private data
resources and to control which outside resources to which its own users have
access.
Basically, a firewall, working closely with a router program, examines each
network packet to determine whether to forward it toward its destination.
Firmware - Programming that is inserted into programmable read-only mem-
ory, thus becoming a permanent part of a computing device.
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