WI-FI MADE EASY.

This article reports that Palo Alto Research Center in California developed a software that lets users speeds up the process of setting up secure communications between the devices in a home Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) wireless network, as of May 2005. A user who wants to add a device, such as a laptop, to the network need only point it at an infrared port attached to the base station. Over the infrared channel, the devices swap digital addresses and short fingerprints of cryptographic keys. Then they switch to a Wi-Fi radio channel where they can use the fingerprints to identify each other and exchange full encryption keys, automating the process of making further communications indecipherable to eavesdroppers. Normally, the process is tedious that many Wi-Fi users do not bother, leaving their networks open to hackers. The researchers say they hope to license the software to hardware companies this year.