Patent ID: 7907936

Claim:
A wireless-communication device performing mutual authentication between the wireless-communication device and a different wireless-communication device by using an authentication server, the wireless-communication device comprising: communication-setting-data-retention means configured to retain communication-setting data including a first metric corresponding to the path from the wireless-communication device to the authentication server, as a self-authentication-server metric; signal-reception means configured to receive a predetermined signal transmitted from the different wireless-communication device, the predetermined signal including a second metric corresponding to the path from the different wireless-communication device to the authentication server, as a nonself-authentication-server metric; and control means configured to make a first setting so that the wireless-communication device operates, as a supplicant, during the mutual authentication when the self-authentication-server metric is better than the nonself-authentication-server metric, and make a second setting so that the wireless-communication device operates, as an authenticator, during the mutual authentication when the self-authentication-server metric is worse than the nonself-authentication-server metric.