Re: WEP wireless

[Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>]

On 10/08/13 22:59, Robert Millan wrote:
> Just FTR, hex strings are accepted too. But they're used without "0x"
> prefix.

wpa_supplicant seemed to be doing the right thing with the 13-char ASCII
string in this case.  But ifconfig(8) warns about them:

>      wepkey key|index:key
> 	     [...]  It may be specified either as a plain string or as a
> 	     string of hexadecimal digits preceded by `0x'.  For maximum
> 	     portability, hex keys are recommended; the mapping of text keys
> 	     to WEP encryption is usually driver-specific.  In particular, the
> 	     Windows drivers do this mapping differently to FreeBSD. 

I found at least one JavaScript-based converter on the web that doesn't
do the obvious translation of ASCII characters to hex bytes.

Either way, deriving a key from exactly 13 printable ASCII characters is
bad news, and WEP is totally broken crypto anyway.  Makes more sense to
run a wide-open WLAN and then authenticate+encrypt some other way, such
as requiring IPsec.  Some have put their faith in WPA2 for the time
being, but I wouldn't waste the effort.

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org