Patent ID: 8036133

Claim:
An apparatus adapted for wireless communication in a wireless network, the apparatus comprising: a processor, the processor being configured to transmit a message, the message including a message body and a field to provide both authentication and error detection for the message, wherein the message body comprises a header, the processor being further configured to determine, during one of a registration and a network entry for a wireless node, a security key associated with the wireless node, and wherein the processor being configured to transmit comprises the processor being configured to: determine an authenticated header checksum sequence for the header to provide both authentication and error detection for the header, the processor being configured to determine the authenticated header checksum sequence including being configured to: determine a message authentication code (MAC) over [(the security key XORed with a counter) and the header] to generate a MAC result; and divide the MAC result by a generator polynomial to generate a residue, wherein the authenticated checksum sequence comprises the residue.