Wireless Security Question

Question

First off, I fully understand that WEP is a weaker form of security than WPA. My WRT110 Wireless Router supports both security features and right now it is on WPA. It's encrypted with my passphrase using TKIP.

However, I have a device that I want to add to this wireless network that cannot connect because it does not support WPA secuirty, only WEP. I know how to access my router via 192.168.1.1 and I can see the WEP security settings.

The problem here is that I am not familiar with WEP security. I have no idea what the difference is between the option of encryption, "40 / 64-bit (10 hex digits)" versus "104 / 128-bit (26 hex digits)." Also, I don't understand the generate button after you enter your passphrase. What do those four keys stand for? And at the bottom there is TX Key: 1; What is this indicating? If I were to enter my network key of my SSID would it be Key 1 or the passphrase that was cleared when I hit generate?

I would be very appreciative if anyone could explain to me these options of WEP and what my network key would be after finishing the set-up of WEP security. Thanks.

Answer 1

Well, the four keys are a bizarre solution to increase the security of the WEP: using a passphrase, you could generate four keys. Then you could select one of the four as the ACTIVE key. Strangely enough, some devices do not support more than 1 WEP key, so you could never use keys 2 through 4 anyway...

The passphrase is an awkward way of remembering the WEP key: instead of remembering 10 or 26 digits, all you had to do was to remember the passphrase, then you could "regenerate" the key somewhere else without typing the digits. However again, not all devices support the passphrase generation method so you have to enter all 10 or 26 digits manually...

Since home WiFi devices support only one OR the other (WEP or WPA), you have to make a choice.

I had the same problem and took this solution path: since I had an old WiFi gateway, I made my WPA gateway my primary internet gateway, then the older WEP one is wirely plugged into the WPA one. Therefore, both WEP and WPA can connect to the internet (I don't want my devices to be able to talk to one another and this configuration supports this).

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Answer 2

Ignore the passphrase thing - it's training wheels.

To use a 40-bit WEP key, choose any combination of 0-9 and a-f to form a string of 10 characters.  For example - 9d3e42167a.  There are 4 keys that you can use in a rotating basis, but it's simpler just to use one.