Flaptekst

Master's Thesis from the year 2001 in the subject Computer Science - Internet, New Technologies, Chalmers University of Technology Foundation Göteborg (Ericsson Enterprise AB), language: English, abstract: The research within Information Technology has been subject to a tremendous speed-up in the latest years, mainly due to the reduced prices of the related technology and, consequently, to a strongly increased interest of the users. This causes a positive feedback loop, since many companies decide to invest more money in such area, reducing further the prices and accelerating this process.

One of the major issues in this big race has been the concept ¿Be connected always and everywhere¿, which translated in an increased development of public networks on one side and in a further growth of big corporation networks on the other side. The common factors of these big areas are mobility, which implies wireless networks, and availability of services, which also means access to more or less important information.

Increased size, mobility and availability of services on networks that become bigger and bigger increases tremendously the importance of data-security. Trust, authentication, and authorization have become vital key words within the design of big, mobile networks.

IEEE 802.1X, also known as ¿Port Based Network Access Control¿ is a means for providing authentication and authorization for big networks that offer the possibility to many devices to attach to them, making their services available.