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Vendors convert mnemonic WEP numeric key differently?

Hi. I have a Westell 327W modem router. It works fine with the computer that is wired directly into it. I just bought a Linksys wireless usb adapter for another computer in our house. That worked fine, too. That is until I enabled WEP on the Westell. When I reconnected with the Linksys wireless and entered the WEP pass code, the access point was found with a strong signal, but it told me that I couldn't get access to the Internet connection.

The Linksys phone help guy was very helpful and patient, but in the end, we couldn't figure out the problem. He speculated that maybe Westell and Linksys convert the mnemonic WEP passcode into a WEP numeric key differently. I couldn't figure out how to find the numeric key on the Westell, so this could not be verified. Has anyone ever heard of this being a problem?

By the way, my work around fix was to just disable WEP and use MAC filtering instead, only allowing my Linksys wireless to use the Westell router. Does that still seem safe?

Thanks for any input!

Ken

Reply to
Ken
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BAD IDEA. Spoofing MAC addresses is trival. All I need to do is sniff your traffic, extract a valid MAC address, spoof it, and I'm on.

The problem with ASCII to Hex conversion has been discussed numerous times in this newsgroup. The basic problem is that there are two methods of converting from ASCII to Hex. In addition, since WPA keys support unicode, some vendors have also added unicode support to WEP using yet another alogrithm. Microsloth XP SP2 Wireless Zero Config only supports one conversion routine. As a result, XP SP2 WZC will sometimes fail to associate with an ASCII key. If you use a Hex key, it will work every time. (Yeah, I know it's long and ugly).

Part of the problem is also that XP SP2 WZC does not properly report the failure mode. It proclaims "connected", followed by "Aquiring IP Address (or something like that). It sits there for about 45 seconds doing nothing, and finally barfs a "Limited Connectivity..." error message. None of the aformentioned offer a clue that a WEP encryption key exchange has failed. Of course, there are no useful diagnostics or logging. Idiots.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thanks! I used a WEP hex key on the router and the wireless adapter, and this solved the problem.

- Ken

Reply to
Ken

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