Change from WEP to WPA?

When I asked for help from Linksys tech support on setting up security, they directed me to WEP-64. I understand now that WPA is better. Is that true?

Is it difficult to change from WEP to WPA? Are they any downsides? If none, why would Linksys do this?

Thanks for any help.

Reply to
Les
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Linksys support is wrong. WPA was invented to do damage control on the inadequacies of WEP. At this time, WEP can be cracked in a few seconds. WPA and WPA2 have yet to be cracked for long and obscure passwords. WEP also has a nasty bug of sorts, where the conversion from the ASCII key to a Hex key is done in one of 3 incompatible ways.

Hang on. Let me fire up my crystal ball. (whrrrr....). I see a router. It has an antenna. That's about all I can tell from here. I gotta get my crystal ball recharged. Meanwhile, it would probably be more useful if you would disclose the maker and model number of your wireless router. Extra credit for the hardware revision (on the serial number tag).

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Some older stuff (such as the Nintendo DS) only supports WEP. If you have such old stuff, you may need to replace it to use WPA. But, given a choice, WPA is *much* more secure than WEP.

Reply to
Bob Willard

The router is 3 yrs old, Linksys model WRK54G, no revision no.

Reply to
Les

The WRK54G supports WPA encryption. I suggest you use it.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thanks for the advise. I have read that WPA is much better, so I was surprised that Linksys had me use WEP..

When I go on the internet vis my brouser to the site to make any chnages, in addition to WEP, I see 2 different WPA choices - WPA Pre-shared key and WPA RADIUS. What is the difference, and which one is preferable? (I am surprised that there is no just WPA".

Reply to
Les

RADIUS is preferable. But you'll need a separate RADIUS server ($$).

Since you are even asking the question, you want pre-shared key (PSK) (requires you to enter the same key into each device). For security, be sure to use a long pass phrase.

Your surprise is due to the fact that there's little discussion of RADIUS on this group, which is more focused on the SOHO environment. I would think your router documentation has some explanation, if it's an available option.

Reply to
default

Actually, you have a few more decisions to make.

Your choices are: WPA PSK (pre-shared key) with TKIP encryption WPA2 PSK (pre-shared key) with TKIP encryption WPA2 PSK (pre-shared key) with AES encryption WPA-PSK is also known as WPA personal depending on whether your religion follows the IEEE or the Wi-Fi Alliance religion.

WPA-RADIUS is also known as WPA-Enterprise, again according to your religious preferences. It requires a RADIUS server or RADIUS service provider. See the FAQ at:

(note the new URL). The only service I've tried is:

which runs on limited hardware and was a bit overpriced.

I've considered throwing together a stand along RADIUS server to do the same thing, but the minimum sales price came out far too high. Some wireless routers have RADIUS servers built in.

Why go through all this trouble for RADIUS? Well, a RADIUS server provides:

  1. A login and password unique to each user.
  2. No shared key that can be leaked.
  3. A unique encryption key that is only used once per session.
  4. Authentication (X.509).

That's good enough unless you wanna add a VPN (virtual private network) or build an NAC (Network Access Control) system:

I recommend WPA2-PSK-TKIP for home systems. No particular reason other than there seem to fewer buggy drivers for TKIP than for AES.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Jeff, I have to confess that when I read your sentence, my first thought was "What does this have to do with the Amish folks?"

Art

Reply to
Arthur Shapiro

Ummm.... well.... now that you mention it, it's quite possible that the driver was written by a horse.

A buggy driver does tend to crash quite often:

(registration required, but well worth it).

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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