Privacy And Powerline Adapters; Setting Up A Private Powerline Network - ZyXEL Communications P-660HWP-D1 User Manual

Chapter 8 Powerline
In this User's Guide the electrical wiring network may be referred to as the "powerline
network".

8.2 Privacy and Powerline Adapters

When the P-660HWP-D1 communicates with each other HomePlug AV compliant powerline
adapters, they use encryption to scramble the information that is sent in the powerline
network. Encryption is like a secret code. If you do not know the secret code, you cannot
understand the message. The HomePlug AV standard uses 128-bit AES (Advanced
Encryption Standard) to safely transmit data between powerline adapters.
For the P-660HWP-D1 and powerline adapters to communicate with each other they all need
to use the same Network Membership Key (NMK). Otherwise, they cannot unscramble the
encrypted data sent in the powerline network.
The NMK is derived from the network name you assign to the
adapters. (In other HomePlug AV compliant devices the network name may be called the
network password.) By default all HomePlug AV powerline adapters are configured with the
network name HomePlugAV. This allows all HomePlug AV powerline adapters and the P-
660HWP-D1 to communicate with each other without any software configuration. This also
means that if you don't change the network name, any HomePlug AV powerline adapter
connected to your powerline circuit can see your network data.
Change the network name on your powerline adapters to ensure secure data
transmission on your powerline network.

8.2.1 Setting Up a Private Powerline Network

To prevent others compromising your network security, you can create a private network.
Create a private network by changing the network name only on the powerline adapters you
want to communicate in your network. The P-660HWP-D1 and powerline adapters convert the
network name to a Network Membership Key (NMK). Only the powerline adapters with the
same NMK can communicate in your network.
The following figure shows a scenario A - where all the powerline adapters have the same
NMK (NMK1) and scenario B - where some adapters use NMK1 and some use NMK2.
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P-660HWP-D1 User's Guide