WPA-PSK Pre-Shared Secret Key

Hi all,

I am just about to switch from WEP to WPA-PSK on my home network.

I have been reading up about WPA and how much more secure it is than
WEP.

I am not an expert in this area so forgive me if this is a silly
question, but what stops an intruder who is monitoring your network
transmissions from picking up your login secret at the time when a
device logs into the network?

thanks
p

the key is used to generate an encrypted token which is used on the link.
you just need to keep your preshared key a secret and preferrably made up of
numbers and symbols as well as easily guessed alpha characters.

jtm


"Patrick Warner" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) om...
[...]
but what stops an intruder who is monitoring your network
transmissions from picking up your login secret at the time when a
device logs into the network?

thanks
p

Taking a moment's reflection, Patrick Warner mused:
|
| I am not an expert in this area so forgive me if this is a silly
| question, but what stops an intruder who is monitoring your network
| transmissions from picking up your login secret at the time when a
| device logs into the network?

It negotiates with an encrypted packet. So, if you have the right key
in place, you can associate. If you don't, then you can't. So, the
association packet, in laymen's terms, is no different (from this point of
view) than any other encrypted packet someone might capture.