WEP V/S WPA SECURITY.

What do WEP and WPA mean?

WEP and WPA (along with WPA2) are names for different encryption tools used to secure your wireless connection. Encryption scrambles the network connection so that no one can “listen in” to it and look at which web pages you are viewing, for example. WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy, and WPA stands for Wireless Protected Access. WPA2 is the second version of the WPA standard.

Using some encryption is always better than using none, but WEP is the least secure of these standards, and you should not use it if you can avoid it. WPA2 is the most secure of the three. If your wireless card and router support WPA2, that is what you should use when setting up your wireless network.

What is an IP Address?

An IP address, short for Internet Protocol address, is an identifying number for a piece of network hardware. Having an IP address allows a device to communicate with other devices over an IP-based network like the internet.

Most IP addresses look like this:

151.101.65.121

Other IP addresses you might come across could look more like this:

2001:4860:4860::8844

What is an IP Address Used For?

An IP address provides an identity to a networked device. Similar to a home or business address supplying that specific physical location with an identifiable address, devices on a network are differentiated from one another through IP addresses.


If I'm going to send a package to my friend in another country, I have to know the exact destination. It's not enough to just put a package with his name on it through the mail and expect it to reach him. I must instead attach a specific address to it, which you could do by looking it up in a phone book.


This same general process is used when sending data over the Internet. However, instead of using a phone book to look up someone's name to find their physical address, your computer uses DNS servers to look up a hostname to find its IP address.