{"id":190,"date":"2021-08-30T13:09:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T13:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/?page_id=190"},"modified":"2021-10-05T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T17:00:08","slug":"wireless-encryption-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wireless-encryption-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Wireless Encryption Help"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re having trouble getting a successful connection in your wireless network, it could be your encryption settings.\u00a0 Try these tips to get securely connected:<\/p>\n<p><b>1) Start with Encryption off (if you can)<\/b><br \/>\nEncryption is another level of complexity (see below) and you need to reduce complexity (walk before you run) when first setting up your wireless LAN.\u00a0 So see if your client card and Access Point (if you&#8217;re using one) will allow Encryption to be turned off (most do), get your networking, then set up Encryption.\u00a0 You may also need to set the Authentication Type for some equipment. See Step 3 below.<\/p>\n<p><b>2<\/b><b>) Read the instructions<\/b><br \/>\nYour vendor may require a specific number of characters for the Encryption key.\u00a0 They may also interpret the characters you input in a specific way.<\/p>\n<p>Look to see if you need to specify whether your key is an ASCII string (alpha-numeric) or Hexadecimal (Hex). If the key can accept Hexadecimal format, check to see whether you need to add anything to your key such as &#8220;0x&#8221; to denote a hex string.<\/p>\n<p><b><a name=\"WEP_method\"><\/a>3) Watch your Authentication Method<br \/>\n<\/b>The 802.11 standard defines two types of Authentication &#8211;\u00a0<b>Open System<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>Shared Key<\/b>.\u00a0<b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.proxim.com\/support\/all\/harmony\/technotes\/tn2001-08-10c.html\" target=\"_offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">This Proxim article<\/a><\/b>\u00a0has a good explanation (with diagrams) of the difference between the two methods.\u00a0 Some products let you set this mode independently of using WEP.\u00a0 Others automatically use Open System if WEP is disabled and use Shared Key when WEP is enabled.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re having a problem communicating between a client and Access Point, first try using the\u00a0<b>Open System<\/b>\u00a0setting and WEP off.\u00a0 When you enable WEP, change the setting to use\u00a0<b>Shared Key<\/b>\u00a0authentication for the best security.<\/p>\n<p><b>4) Match WEP bit levels<br \/>\n<\/b>You\u00a0<b>can<\/b>\u00a0mix 40\/64 and 128bit WEP cards in a network.\u00a0 However, 128 bit WEP cards can communicate with 40\/64 bit WEP cards only if they are\u00a0<b>set to use 40 bit keys!\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>See\u00a0<b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/mixed_wep.htm\">this page<\/a><\/b>\u00a0for more info.<\/p>\n<p><b>5) Keep It Simple!<\/b><br \/>\nWEP implementations differ from vendor to vendor and documentation isn&#8217;t the best.\u00a0 Here are some tips for success<\/p>\n<p>If your software offers the\u00a0<b>&#8220;passphrase&#8221; method<\/b>\u00a0of key generation:<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p align=\"left\">keep the passphrase string short<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p align=\"left\">use only\u00a0<b>numbers<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>letters<\/b>\u00a0and no spaces or other characters<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"left\"><img alt='attentionsml-2167046' src='https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/attentionsml-2167046.gif' width=\"30\" height=\"30\" border=\"0\" \/>\u00a0The\u00a0<b>&#8220;passphrase&#8221;<\/b>\u00a0key entry method is not the same as\u00a0<b>&#8220;string&#8221;<\/b>\u00a0entry.\u00a0 The &#8220;passphrase&#8221; method allows you to enter an alpha-numeric phrase, but that entry is used to generate a\u00a0<b>Hexadecimal<\/b>\u00a0key of proper length.\u00a0\u00a0<b><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;String&#8221;<\/b>\u00a0entry usually requires that you input a an alpha-numeric character string of the\u00a0<b>proper length<\/b>\u00a0for the level of WEP that your product has.\u00a0 Use the\u00a0<b><a>pop-up WEP code summary<\/a><\/b>\u00a0for reference.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">\n<p align=\"left\">If your software offers only\u00a0<b>manual key entry<\/b>\u00a0(usually you&#8217;ll see a series of two character entry boxes):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p align=\"left\">start with\u00a0<b>all 1s or 0s\u00a0<\/b>as your key, get it working, then increase the complexity of your code<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>use Hexadecimal characters only<\/b>\u00a0(the numbers 0-9 and letters a-f) unless your documentation tells you otherwise<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>6) Enter\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">all<\/span>\u00a0the characters<\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Note in the example configuration utility screenshot below the\u00a0<b>pairs<\/b>\u00a0of asterisks in each of the 5 entry boxes for each key.\u00a0 This means that you need to enter\u00a0<b>two<\/b>\u00a0<b>Hexadecimal characters\u00a0<\/b>in each box (5 boxes with 2 characters equals the 10 Hex characters you need for a 40\/64bit WEP Hex key).\u00a0<b><a>Popup the WEP Code Summary<\/a><\/b>\u00a0to see how many characters you need to enter for other schemes.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-191\" src=\"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/wpc11_4.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"344\" height=\"403\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wireless_encrypt.htm\">Wireless Encryption Overview<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/mixed_wep.htm\">Mixing WEP Levels<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a>PopUp WEP Code Reference<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re having trouble getting a successful connection in your wireless network, it could be your encryption settings.\u00a0 Try these tips to get securely connected: 1) Start with Encryption off (if you can) Encryption is another level of complexity (see below) and you need to reduce complexity (walk before you run) when first setting up your wireless LAN.\u00a0 So see if your client card and Access Point (if you&#8217;re using one) will allow Encryption to be turned off (most do), get your networking, then set up Encryption.\u00a0 You may also need to set the Authentication Type for some equipment. See <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practicallynetworked.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}