Windows XP -> Apple Airport: WEP key not accepted

jp

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Trying to connect my XP laptop to an Airport base station at work. I
can see the SSID and that WEP is enabled. The girl who runs the
department where the Airport has been installed has provided me a
seven-character ASCII phrase as the "network password" as she calls
it. When I enter this phrase as the WEP key I get an error stating
that it has to be eight, 12 or 15 characters. She and the Mac repair
tech at work swear that the password she gave me is correct--they are
using it on the Macs that connect to that Airport. Can anyone help me
with this discrepancy? Could the Airport be running in "Macs only"
mode? The router does give me an IP, and I've also configured the
subnet mask and gateway address and still no dice. Thanks in advance.

Jerome
 
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what they've given you is a passphrase which the apple converts to a hex key
before using. you need the hex key. apple may make this key visible
somewhere or may provide a utility which uses the same algorithm to generate
the hex key from the passphrase for windows.

fwiw, linksys does a similar thing for their wep key generation on their
routers. but it would be just luck if the key generation algorithm was the
same.

good luck

jtm

"JP" <spam@pixelmassive.com> wrote in message
news:489a37c8.0408072229.16dc6c44@posting.google.com...
Trying to connect my XP laptop to an Airport base station at work. I
can see the SSID and that WEP is enabled. The girl who runs the
department where the Airport has been installed has provided me a
seven-character ASCII phrase as the "network password" as she calls
it.
 
G

Guest

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Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

Hi,

In his 08/08/2004 à 08:29:42 post, JP stated:

> When I enter this phrase as the WEP key I get an error stating
> that it has to be eight, 12 or 15 characters. She and the Mac repair
> tech at work swear that the password she gave me is correct--they are
> using it on the Macs that connect to that Airport.

Tell them to deal with a menu in the "Aiport admin utility" to generate
the HEX key equivalent you need.

Hope this help (it should).

--
Sinmian
All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust. [...]
Through these it blinds the soul, after having overclouded wisdom.
[Bhagavad Gita, 3:36-43]
 
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> what they've given you is a passphrase which the apple converts to a hex key
> before using. you need the hex key. apple may make this key visible
> somewhere or may provide a utility which uses the same algorithm to generate
> the hex key from the passphrase for windows.

Yup, better switch to WPA where you don't have to worry about hex keys
and how to enter them. And you additionally get extra security to boot.


Stefan
 
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In his 08/08/2004 at 16:56:00 post, Sinmian stated:

> Tell them to deal with a menu in the "Aiport admin utility" to
> generate the HEX key equivalent you need.

There could be another problem described at the bottom of this page
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106424> about typing an
dollar sign as HEX escape character in the filed before the password.

--
Sinmian
All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust. [...]
Through these it blinds the soul, after having overclouded wisdom.
[Bhagavad Gita, 3:36-43]
 
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On 8 Aug 2004 15:05:55 GMT, "Sinmian" <spamsux@sinmian.com.invalid>
wrote:

>There could be another problem described at the bottom of this page
><http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106424> about typing an
>dollar sign as HEX escape character in the filed before the password.

Yeah, I went nuts trying to get the WEP key working on an old Apple
Airport. The above URL is misleading. You need to insert the WEP key
(password) in the form of 0x12345etc. The 0x tells Apple that the
password is in hexadecimal. See:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030903055329483
Airport firmware 3.1 and above no longer requires the 0x confusion and
uses a pull down box thing instead.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
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In his 08/08/2004 at 16:57:26 post, Stefan Monnier stated:

> Yup, better switch to WPA where you don't have to worry about hex keys
> and how to enter them. And you additionally get extra security to
> boot.

Indeed but, imho, old 802.11b Airport hardware are not full compatible
with WPA (thank you Apple).

--
Sinmian
All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust. [...]
Through these it blinds the soul, after having overclouded wisdom.
[Bhagavad Gita, 3:36-43]
 

jp

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Yes, that's it. Thank you very much.

"Jim Miller" <jim@NOSPAMjtmiller.com> wrote in message news:<gP-dnWwYG8Clb4jcRVn-uQ@comcast.com>...
> what they've given you is a passphrase which the apple converts to a hex key
> before using. you need the hex key. apple may make this key visible
> somewhere or may provide a utility which uses the same algorithm to generate
> the hex key from the passphrase for windows.