what is wep, wpa key?

Question

I bought a wireless router, a wifi but i dont know how to set it up. In installation they asking about wep/ wpa key what is it? and where can i find it. I dont know how to set this thing up. Please help.

Answer 1

WEP/WPA is security for your wireless network. WPA is preferred and harder to hack into. WEP uses a 10 digit/character password. WPA uses a 26 character pass phrase. You first set it up in your routers configuration web page. Then, you use Windows "Set up a Wireless Network" wizard. Make sure you click in the WE/WPA first and type the exact password or pass phrase in. BAM! You now have a secured network! Good luck!

Answer 2

WEP is an encryption method for the router and computer/laptop to talk. It prevented "hacking" into your router over a wireless connection. WPA2 is a more secure and if your router supports it then I would use it. WEP is the older and is crackable in a bout 10 secs. You can use a Pre-Shared Key (a password that you create) and put that on your laptop/computer and router to establish communication.
Basically, WEP and WPA are encryptions and the key "unlocks" or allows communication. Hope this helps...

Answer 3

WEP/WPA key Generator
Introduction
This software has been written by Soroban Systems Ltd to assist in securing small private wireless networks using a pre-shared key. The program may be freely distributed. Soroban Systems and John Steele retain the copyright to the program.

Wireless networks need to be secured. If you use the default settings "out of the box" then home networks are accessible to neighbours but office systems are potentially open to competitors.

The advice generally given is to make some basic changes to the default configuration to improve security. Such advice includes:

Hide the SSID (Service Set Identifier) broadcast from the Access point to distinguish your network from any other
This could be done after you have set up your network in the first place, especially for a home user.
Turn on whatever encryption your wireless device supports. If a good choice on encryption key is made then this is your main line of defence. For basic networks the choice is (depending on your Wireless equipment)
WEP 40 bit (sometimes called 64 bit)
WEP 104 bit (sometimes called 128 bit)
WPA 256 bit Pre-shared Key
What encryption method should you choose?

WPA is the newest and strongest encryption method. If this is not available (generally for older devices) choose WEP. 104/128 bit encryption is stronger than 40/64 bit if available. Note that 24 bits of the WEP protocol is not selectable by the user.

The strength of the protection given by encryption depends on the choice of encryption key.

Passphrase Issues
You are normally told to use a "passphrase" to generate the encryption key. Sometimes it is suggested that you should use Upper and Lower case characters and even numeric characters and punctuation marks. The use of characters in this way however weakens the key for two reasons:

Use of words in the passphrase can help a "dictionary" attack
Characters will typically only use up to 96 out of the 256 bits available in each byte of the key" attack
The Solution is to use a key generator which generates random values for each element in the key. This is the purpose of this program.

Program Operation
Installation
This program does not need to be installed but it does however depend on having the Microsoft .NET framework installed. Just download the zip file from HERE. Save it to your local disk, unzip it and run it! The zip file contains the executable program wepkeygenerator.exe and a PDF version of this page.

The zipfile download is 111 kilobytes

The program can generate Hexadecimal WEP keys of 40/64 bit length and 104/128 bit length just by pressing the appropriate button.

For WPA there are additional options. According to the literature some WPA devices can accept a Hexadecimal string of 64 Hexadecimal characters. To use the hexadecimal form just click the 256 bit WPA key

I know that some routers will not accept this format however so there is an option to generate a random text string of between 8 and 63 characters. Again as I do not have a range of routers to test this with I have created two options.

The first WPA button restricts the characters generated to random values between decimal 32 and decimal 126.
The extended format WPA button will generate values between 32 and 254 but will omit the range 127 to 160.
In all cases the text string generated will be displayed in the Textbox and will automatically be copied to the windows Clipboard. I recommend that this is pasted into a text file so that it can be kept. The screenshot shows a standard ASCII WPA key that has just been generated.

There is no way of replicating the WPA string with the program.

Technical Details and Caveats
The software depends on the Microsoft .NET framework version 1.1. This must be installed before the program will run.

Random numbers seem simple. The main difficulty is proving that the sequence generated is actually random. This program is intended to simplify the protection of wireless networks used in the home or small offices. Any flaws that might be discovered in the randomness are unlikely to aid an attacker to any great extent with a key of this length. It is certainly better than a passphrase formed out of words or a string of characters just typed at the keyboard as a wider set of character symbols are used. If you do not believe that Microsoft have made their random number generator sufficiently random then you should use another source of random data.

The program was written in Visual Basic.NET using Microsoft Visual Studio.NET. The bytes used for the WEP or WPA keys are generated using the Microsoft RNGCryptoServiceProvider Class cryptographic Random Number Generator. No attempt has been made to verify the randomness of the keys produced. A search on the Internet however did not produce any reports about any weaknesses in this area.

Release History
Version Notes
0.1 First Release. Beta version of the program released for comment and evaluation

Support
This program is provided "as is" with no warranty given as to its suitability for your use. Please report any problems to Soroban Systems Ltd. by clicking on the image here .

We will attempt to address any issues as soon as possible.

We would also appreciate any comments and suggestions.