A county assessor asks what association accomplishes after 802.11 authentication on a municipal WLAN. What is correct?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Authentication is showing ID at the door; association is picking which service desk you’re attached to. Until you’re associated to that AP, you’re not really “in” that BSS for data.
Full Explanation
802.11 authentication and association are link-layer steps. After open-system authentication (in common modern flows), association establishes the client’s membership in a particular BSS and yields identifiers used for that relationship. Encryption handshakes and higher-layer access controls may follow; association itself does not equal application login or IP addressing.