Windows XP -> Apple Airport: WEP key not accepted

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

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" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
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.

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]

> 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

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]

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]

On 8 Aug 2004 15:05:55 GMT, "Sinmian" <(E-Mail Removed)>
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.p...30903055329483
Airport firmware 3.1 and above no longer requires the 0x confusion and
uses a pull down box thing instead.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

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

"Jim Miller" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<gP-dnWwYG8Clb4jcRVn-(E-Mail Removed)>...
> 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.

In his 08/08/2004 at 17:40:03 post, Jeff Liebermann stated:

> Yeah, I went nuts trying to get the WEP key working on an old Apple
> Airport.

As far as I just recently read this group, you dont seem to be fallen
with the last rain yet (as we say here for you wasn't born
yesterday)...

I encounter the same problem a few weeks ago at a friend's home with
Airport Extreme, my Samsung X10 never got the spot though all the
settings seemed right...

> The above URL is misleading.

Great.

> You need to insert the WEP key (password) in the form of 0x12345etc.
> The 0x tells Apple that the password is in hexadecimal.

If "zero-x" the most efficient why talking about this dollar sign ? ;-)

Thanks for the tip.

--
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]

On 9 Aug 2004 10:49:31 GMT, "Sinmian" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>As far as I just recently read this group, you dont seem to be fallen
>with the last rain yet (as we say here for you wasn't born
>yesterday)...

So many metaphors, so little time. Yes, I think I know what I'm
doing. However, sometimes I'm not sure. That's why my domain is
LearnByDestroying.com. Let the rains begin.

>>http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106424
>> The above URL is misleading.
>Great.

The articles attempts to blame the non-Apple hardware for the WEP key
incompatibility, and suggest using various mutations of hexadecimal
indicating prefixes. Only the 0x12345etc form works. I dunno where
they got the "$" prefix for hexadecimal idea.

>> You need to insert the WEP key (password) in the form of 0x12345etc.
>> The 0x tells Apple that the password is in hexadecimal.

>If "zero-x" the most efficient why talking about this dollar sign ? ;-)

It's an evil conspiracy by Apple to cast fear and doubt upon the
efforts of compatible hardware vendors, by intentionally
misrepresenting the problem, while simultaneously supplying erroneous
and misleading information as to the necessary secret incantation
needed to submit an acceptable hex WEP key. This lack of
documentation on the exact format and the long delay in finally fixing
the damn thing in version 3.1 firmware, that was released only about a
year ago, is certainly an indication of such a plot.

Apple also has conspired to cover up a rather common defect with the
older Airport base stations. See:
http://www.vonwentzel.net/ABS/Repair/
Actually, this is only a small part of the world wide conspiracy to
slow the progress of technology and force premature upgrades by
installing components that fail immediately after the warranty
expires.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558