# Funny WEP key

## sl70

A cafe with free wifi just opened in my neighborhood, so I went in there recently to sample the coffee (good) and wireless network (not so good). They gave me an encryption key that looks like a phone number. It was (something like) 927-493-1313.  It put it into my /etc/conf.d/wireless script (I'm using UberLord's wireless-config) but it wouldn't authenticate. The problem is (I think) that (the software and) I  can't tell if this is some truncated WEP key in hex or in decimal, or a passphrase or what.  Does this make any sense to anyone?

(I should add that I use this config at home and in various other places with no trouble.)

Thanks.

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## UberLord

Is it a string or a hex key? That's important! If it's a string, try it with "s:927-493-1313"

BTW, wireless-config has been deprecated in favour of baselayout-1.11.6-r1.If you upgrade to it then remove the preup()/down() functions in /etc/conf.d/net that hook wireless in.

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## sl70

Right. That's the problem: I couldn't tell if it was a string or a set of numbers. And there was no techie at the cafe when I went there. I had hoped someone would recognize it as something familiar. I tried all kinds of combinations: with the s:, without the s:, with quotes, without quotes, with the dashes, without the dashes. Everything I tried resulted in failure to authenticate.

I plan to upgrade to baselayout 1.11.6-r1 but I haven't had the chance yet. I'll try it and see if I'm then able to authenticate at the cafe.

Thanks.

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## OdinsDream

Maybe you could find someone else using the network successfully and take a peek at their settings? It's eventually going to be a hex string, no matter what the card says, it's just the translation you need to figure out. What probably happened is the AP's configuration GUI allowed them to type in an alphanumeric string, and then this is somehow converted to Hex, according to whatever rules it has for doing it (padding with 0's on the left, the right, how it would truncate it, etc)

If all else fails, you could use some kind of WEP cracking program to arrive at the correct key after sniffing packets from the network... though I have no practical experience with this approach, nor would it be too successful unless the network were being used by an authenticated client during your sniffing.

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## allucid

depending on the key strength, you usually have to sniff a lot of packets to obtain the key. most likely you'd have to sit there all day (maybe longer) sniffing packets...  :Razz: 

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## sl70

Well, upgrading baselayout to 1.11.6-r1 fixed it! I'm writing this while sipping espresso and relaxing in the cafe.  Thanks and praise to UberLord.

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## UberLord

You really need baselayout-1.11.7-r2 - it fixes quite a few problems from 1.11.6

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