On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Ben Combee wrote:
installation first. It worked out quite well, especially the privacy aspects, as the dorm routers encrypted all packets so only the intended Ethernet node could receive it (at least that is what they said).
I'm not familiar with the GA Tech network, but they probably didn't "encrypt at the router." They most likely used concentrators which would send a the original packet only to the concentrator port registered for the MAC (layer 2) address involved, and sent a packet with the payload overwritten with "junk" out the other ports, to comply with ethernet rules whereby all devices "see" the packet. Not encryption at all, but it does defeat sniffing (on the local segment only) if configured in this manner. - r.w.