On 06/04/2007 06:12 PM, Dan Williams wrote: > On Sun, 2007-06-03 at 02:06 -0700, Patton Echols wrote: > >> Sry if this reposts. Having mail trouble here so trying again. >> >> On 05/31/2007 02:16 PM, Dan Williams wrote: >> >>> On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 17:25 +0000, Volker Braun wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Your WEP password is wrong. A glaring design flaw of WEP is that it does >>>> not give any feedback on whether the password is correct or not. >>>> >>>> >>> Right; NM basically has to try to run DHCP and (after 40s) timeout the >>> connection attempt, because there's no indication that the key is wrong. >>> >>> >>> >> Well, the scenario is this: >> >> The A.P. is at a coffee shop that is selected by other folks for >> meetings. They provide "free" access, but use WEP to keep folks from >> parking in their lot, using their connection and not coming in to buy >> coffee. When you buy coffee, they have a stack of slips on the counter >> with the current password. It is not designed for real security, just to >> be enough of a hassle so that people will actually come in the store. >> The point of this background is that the passwords are easy: Like >> "h0t-m0cha" and they are written down, so easy to key in correctly. >> Finally, as I said in the original post, when I boot to WinXP, feed it >> the password, it works just fine. >> >>> Be _sure_ you have the right type of passphrase. The other flaw in WEP >>> is that there are 3 key lengths (40, 104, and 152 bit) and 3 different >>> passphrase hashes (hex, ascii, and passphrase). >>> >> Ok, I saw the place to select the hash on the passphrase dialog, but I >> thought it was just looking for eg; a hex passphrase. In which case a >> passphrase with a "t" or "m" would not work. Could I use the example >> above if I switched to hex or ascii? >> >> I don't remember seeing a choice of key length. Is that in the same >> dialog? Or do I change that setting elsewhere. If NM defaults to 104 >> bit, I can imagine a failure because the philosophy of what they are >> trying to do is minimal security. >> >>> There's also the Open >>> System and Shared Key auth methods. You must get all of those correct, >>> otherwise the connection will not succeed. >>> >>> >> And no way to get the AP to tell you the combo it is looking for? How >> does windoze do it then? It seems to work there :-( >> > > No, there is no way with WEP. > > It works on Windows XP/2000 because the only entry type is "Hex Key"; > there isn't even a choice for Passphrase or anything else. You can only > do actual passphrases with vendor driver utils from D-Link, Linksys, > etc. That said, having to present a choice between 3 different kinds of > key types really sucks. > > If the key you're given is 10 or 26 characters long, and only includes > the the numbers 1 - 9 and letters a - f, then it's almost certainly a > Hex Key, not a passphrase. > > Dan > Well, no great surprise here, Dan was exactly right. My example of a passphrase of "hot-mocha" must have been a bad memory, 'cuz that can't be a hex key. When I went back, the new passphrase was the shop's phone number -- (I really don't know why they bother!) entered as hex and worked fine.
This raises a good point, I think. If faced with a situation like this, where given a WEP passphrase but not the type? Assume hex unless it clearly is something else. Dan, and everyone else who answered, thanks for the insight. I appreciate it. Patton _______________________________________________ NetworkManager-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/networkmanager-list
