The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Help connecting Windows XP PC to friend's Airport

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by benx009, Apr 15, 2008.

  1. benx009

    benx009 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    184
    Messages:
    663
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Hey all (been quite a while since my last post here :p ) I know that the following is a bit long, but please read on :eek:
    -->
    I've been having a hard time trying to connect to my friend's Apple airport wireless router. I'm attempting to do this w/ Windows XP. I'm not all too familiar with how encrypted wireless connections work (on all the public hotspots I go to, it's pretty easy: just click n go :D ), but I've at least figured out the basics of WEP and WPA encryption (no need to go into WPA here though, since my friend swears that his connection is WEP 128-bit). The problem I'm having right now is getting through the whole passkey phase. My friend says that he connects to his airport (with his macbook running Leopard) with a 7-letter everyday password (by "everyday," I mean something easy to remember). However, whenever I enter this password in Windows to try to connect to his airport, Windows says that the password has to be either 5 or 13 letters/numbers, which I'm guessing is representative of 64-bit and 128-bit connections respectively. I did some research into all of this, and found out that Apple usually makes their users' lives easier by having them use an "everyday" password to be a substitute for the rather long and hard to remember WEP passkey, which is what I need in order to connect my Windows machine to his airport. Like I said before, my friend's connection is 128-bit, so I need to find the 13-key letter passphrase that he and I both know is hidden somewhere on his Mac. I did further research into the matter, and found out that a Mac application called the "Airport Admin Utility" could tell us what the WEP passkey was... but it was to our extreme dismay and woe when we ran the program and found out that it COULD NOT IDENTIFY HIS WIRELESS CARD (which was a little strange b/c his computer connects just fine to his internet). So, with all of that said, can anyone give me any other methods for finding the WEP passkey on my friend's Mac? TIA.
     
    benx009, Apr 15, 2008
    #1
  2. blue68f100

    blue68f100 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    1,020
    Messages:
    3,439
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Well since this can also be used to break passwords that are hidden if the pc is stolen, I'm not at liberty to say what to use. I would suggest to use the mac and connect to the admin page on the Airport base, should be the gateway's IP. You should be able to view it there.

    I would suggest that he switch over to WPA AES Personal wireless security. Even though it's WEP 128 bit cracking is very easy, max time for most <3min vs 1 min for 64bit. And do use a good random generated key. I have setup many MAC networks and it is easier than pc's.
     
    blue68f100, Apr 15, 2008
    #2