WEP Problems

[DarthDaddy]

OK

I just got my new laptop for work. It is WIRELESS which is why I got it. Well my router was set to the WEP protocol so it would work with the Wii and DS as well as my wife's laptop.

Well when I went to setup my laptop last night my signal strength was so low it would not register. It would start at 54 mbps then fall to 36, 18 and finally 11. I noticed there was another network labeled NETGEAR (I just never changed my routers name) Well no matter what connection I picked it always went back to the OTHER NETGEAR account. I deleted it, blocked it and tried everything. I canged my routers name and channel and tried to connect using the WEP and it would not connect and went back to the other NETGEAR connection.

So my temp solution was to set up the router with just a regular password and it works just fine... 54 mbps connection

Does anyone have any experience with WEP????

Thanks

[Captain Dad]

I wish, mine does not show up at all. I am stealing my neighbors. Call the router company, Linksys has walked me through set up a few times.

[wolfmanyoda]

I've got mine set up with WEP. Are you using Windows internal tools to configure the wireless or the software that came with your router?
I've got a Belkin and the software that it came with is painfully easy to use, the only semi-technical knowledge needed was to turn off Windows wireless configuration through the control panel and that's easy to do.
It was even easier setting it up in Linux, all I had to do was supply the router name and my key.

[DarthDaddy]

Well

After chatting with an IT friend o mine he said to use the WAP setup and not to worry about the nintendo. The Wii will work with the WAP and the new games coming out for the DS have an update to play using routers without WEP....

So I have it set up using WAP...

[stretch]

I would advise against relying on WEP for your wireless security. It is a thoroughly busted encryption scheme.

However, a recent development by the folks at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany have managed to extract a 104-bit WEP key in three seconds, using a 1.7GHz Pentium M processor. It takes under a minute to collect the necessary 40,000 - 85,000 packets of data, and the hack could potentially be carried out by a strolling cellphone or PDA user.The Wii supports WPA authentication, though the DS sadly does not.

Edit: I guess I should have read what you wrote in the post above. D'oh.

[DarthDaddy]

I am also a little dyslexic :-)

WPA2 would be even better...

[cloweman]

Dammit! Does this mean I need to change my wireless configurations from WEP to WAP to be secure? I guess I'll add that to the list.

Of course, why would someone hack my system from outside when I have neighbors that use no encryption?