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Thread: wireless encryption

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    wireless encryption

    Hello,

    I am having some trouble with network encryption. I have a netgear router which gives me the options:
    WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
    WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)
    WPA-802.1x

    I have just tried to use the WPA-PSK, i entered the key, just a random word, and saved it. I then got kicked off the network, as you would expect. However when i tried to enter my key, it said that it needed to be in ASCII or hex and specified the amount of characters/digits. This occurred using windows 2003 server.

    Another computer on the network is running windows xp home and they typed in the key and it worked fine first time.

    I was just wondering what i should be doing to my windows in order for this to work, or infact i should be using WPA-PSK at all?

    Thanks very guys - much appreciated.
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    Fried Chip Extremist alsenior's Avatar
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    wpa-psk is a very strong encryption technique but it can be a pain in the ass some times. a better solution if this is not working would be to enter the mac address and setup mac filtering on the router.
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    Quote Originally Posted by alsenior View Post
    wpa-psk is a very strong encryption technique but it can be a pain in the ass some times. a better solution if this is not working would be to enter the mac address and setup mac filtering on the router.
    If you do this bear in mind that a MAC can be spoofed easily enough, and any wireless hacker will have this after a few minutes analysing network traffic. Try resetting your WPA-PSK and then entering on the server again, ensuring case is correct.

    That said I don't think I'd like to run a server over wireless, wired all the way for me.

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    I have a netgear DG602 and have configured it to work with a wireless laptop on WPA2 (even more secure than WPA) and you need a 63 digit ASCII or 64 digit hex if i remember correctly using AES encryption.

    Drop me a line if you need any more help
    Last edited by geezerone; 04-10-2006 at 09:48 AM.
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    http://www.winguides.com/security/password.php

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    keep the PSK pretty long.

    if you fancy setting yourself a challenge whynot try and set up 802.1x with certificates on your machines & radius services set up on the server.
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    Hi, cheers for the responses there guys. For the moment i have managed to get around the previous problem by using WEP, it seems to be working fine on all computers.

    However, it drops the LAN connection on all the computers every 5 minutes or so. Is there any way of getting around this?

    If there isnt i shall try the MAC filtering alsenior, its only a home setup, so i doubt that many people around here will be capable of hacking it.

    CHeers guys.
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    I've found in my house that wpa doesn't work with all cards, wep 128 works with more, and wep 64 still more, but still not all of them like even that low level of security.

    I have not found a way around this

    blockers - with mac filtering, even though you are at home, it is still very easy to hack, its not a case of if someone is capable, but if they have the inclination.

    to make it more hassle for anyone that has the inclination, turn off dhcp and assign static ips, block any static ips that are not part of your normal group.

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    Have you tried getting WPA working on at least one PC (the newest Wireless adaptor) to see if it is hardware related? WEP can be cracked but should put off casual sniffers, better to go WPA if you can invest in that if needs be. Don't broadcast you default wireless ID but change it to something else - even a full stop!
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