Patent ID: 7890745

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a receiver of a station configured to receive, from an access point when the station is in an unassociated and unauthenticated state with respect to the access point, a wireless communication including a beacon frame or a probe response frame having a first plurality of parameters related to network capability information, and to receive, from the access point during a four-way handshake key distribution process, a message 3 frame of the four-way handshake including a second plurality of parameters corresponding to at least a subset of the first plurality of parameters related to network capability information contained in the beacon frame or the probe response frame; an authentication module coupled to the receiver to compare respective ones of the second plurality of parameters with corresponding ones of the first plurality of parameters to determine whether they are the same; and a transmitter coupled to the authentication module and configured to transmit data in response to a determination that the respective ones of the second plurality of parameters and the corresponding ones of the first plurality of parameters are same.