Patent ID: 7912221

Claim:
A communication apparatus connected to a wireless network for directly communicating with another terminal, said apparatus comprising: a determiner, arranged to determine if the communication apparatus and a terminal of a communication partner can concurrently use different encryption keys in correspondence with a plurality of communication destinations; a unicast-key generator, arranged to generate a unicast key with the terminal of the communication partner; a setting section, arranged to set the generated unicast key as an encryption key for a communication with the terminal of the communication partner when the determiner determines that the communication apparatus and the terminal of the communication partner can concurrently use different encryption keys in correspondence with the plurality of communication destinations and to set an encryption key uniquely set in the wireless network as an encryption key for a communication with the terminal of the communication partner when said determiner determines that at least one of the communication apparatus and the terminal of the communication partner cannot concurrently use different encryption keys in correspondence with the plurality of communication destinations, wherein the encryption key uniquely set in the wireless network is an encryption key for a communication in a terminal group.