Re: questions re WEP keys

[Gene Heskett <gene heskett verizon net>]

On Wednesday 24 January 2007 04:49, Timo Hoenig wrote:
>Hi Gene,
>
>On Tue, 2007-01-23 at 23:53 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> I have a situation where I would like to generate long keys, 128 bit,
>> and in fact have done so.
>>
>> The lappy is running FC5, recent kernel.
>> But from the messages I see in the logs, and what I see in
>> knetworkmanager, it appears that the only key length supported by
>> knetworkmanager is a puny little 40 bit key.
>
>NetworkManager supports both, 64 and 128 bit WEP keys.  If you speak
>about the netto value of bits used for encryption you end up with 40
>(104) bit.  The missing 24 bits are being used by an initialization
>vector which is not under the control of the user.
>
'netto' is a new term to me.  Can you elaborate?

>KNetworkManager thus uses 40/104 bit for the user interface.  And, of
>course, it does not only support 40 bit WEP keys.
>
>   Timo

I just rebooted it again, and turned on the wap11.  knetworkmanager showed 
me the neighbors essid long before it found mine for some reason.  But it 
did eventually show mine, and when I clicked on it, it did connect.  WEP 
is turned off on both ends so there is no security.

Now, I've used wap11gui to enter and save the 128 bit keys generated by 
the windows version, and connectivity is lost.  I've edited ifcfg-wlan0 
to put the contents of key1 into the previously blank key= line.

After a few minutes, I called up knetworkmanager again and the x had been 
removed from my essid, so I clicked on it again. At that point 
knetworkmanager crashed and exited.

After 2 more passes at running it, it finally showed up in the tray again 
using the disconnected icon, and a click on it once more displayed the 
two essid's.  Clicking on mine, it immediately opens a requester for a 
password to the knetworkmanager wallet. I've seen this before and no 
known password works.  They all return an error -9:Read error - possibly 
incorrect password.  I'm running as root, and the root password is 
rejected.  Going to 
controlcenter->security&privacy->kdewallet->accesscontrol, I get the 
wallet dislay window, and when clicking on kdewallet, this same password 
requester shows up and once again no known password is valid.

I think I'll see if I can turn it off.   Ahh, that seems to have worked.

Ok, now knetworkmanager is showing the wireless network with my essid, and 
when thats clicked on, is asking for a wep passphrase, or I can select 
the 40/104 bit key in hex or ascii.  Selecting the hex version, I'll now 
give it the 26 hex chars of key1...  This enables the connect button, and 
I'm connected.  I'm confused by the nomenclature, 40 bits is only 5 
characters, and 104 is only 13 bytes,...and is the 26 hex chars, I 
finally figure that part out, big 'duh'.

So this works, but half an hours putzing around doesn't seem to show me 
how to make it automatic the next time.  Where is the 'save as' dialog, 
which should include making a given profile the 'default' profile, and 
where is the dialog allowing me to select other already saved profiles?

I mean this lappy could well be in a motel in upstate MI 3 weeks from now, 
and that setup is completely different.

I know from nothing about the kwallet business, never having seen or used 
it previously in about 9 months of running FC5 on this lappy.  It seems 
to be something designed to be a PITA, and I have dealt with just enough 
windows crap trying to keep the neighbors boxes running that the small 
windows partition on that lappy IS the only windows allowed on the 
premises that aren't glass.  Windows is a PITA I can do without.

I have an atheros card in my router which I'm going to enable later this 
week (I'm using dd-wrt on an old x86 box, booting from a cf card) and 
I'll need to do this all over again with a new mac address since thats 
also required I believe.  I can just add those to the list so that won't 
be so difficult other than the time putzing around to find where to do it 
and doing it. 

So whats the next 'fix'.   How can I save this profile, and then select it 
later from a list of profiles?

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
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Copyright 2007 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.