New wireless dongle wont allow connection

JonnyXXX

I installed a new wireless dongle into my laptop. I ran the install CD ect.

But it is telling me that i have limited or no connectivity.

it requested a WEP key first time, which i entered and double checked.

It is reading the signal strength but it just wont give me the connection.

I assume nothing needs to change on the wireless router (I restarted it anyway just in case)

thanks

sirpsycho

try going to control panel / network connections and rightclick your adaptor and goto TCP/IP and properties and make sure "Obtain ip address automatically" is on and "Obtain DNS server address automatically" is on. restart computer and see if that helps.

JonnyXXX

yes there are both set as they should be. no luck there. i have another laptop on the same network that is fine. so its definitely the laptop settings or the dongle settings....

any other ideas?

JonnyXXX

wireless network, using a belkin router and a belkin wireless dongle. when i turn on WEP 64 bit or 128 bit i cannot get a connection. i need to turn off security to get the connection. any ideas?

is MAC address filtering sufficient?

Spear

JonnyXXX wrote: »

wireless network, using a belkin router and a belkin wireless dongle. when i turn on WEP 64 bit or 128 bit i cannot get a connection. i need to turn off security to get the connection. any ideas?

is MAC address filtering sufficient?

WEP and MAC filtering are the same as no security. Use WPA with a long key.

Capt'n Midnight

MAC security will only keep out casual users, not anyone who would care to issue a one line command in linux or changing the MAC setting in the registry windows. Worth doing but it won't keep out a determined or knowlegable person.

WEP and WPA can be a bit tricky with plain text passwords on some devices since the rules may vary when converting to the real Hex key. So start off with a short password in HEX , Numbers 0-9, and letters A-F, and once that works a longer one.

128 Bit WEP can be broken in 6 3 minutes.Had the encryption scheme been opened for peer review it probably it would still be secure today. you have NO control over the first 24 bits so 64 bit web only offers 40 bit encryption and 128 bit only offers 108 bits. Besides which you get weak packets every so often which are far easier to break.

Notes on wep passwords
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/support/mixed_wep.htm

So only use WEP if you don't have WPA, use 128 bit if possible, use a hex password.

you use netstumbler to see how much lower hanging fruit there is nearby, the more people with an open connection the less likely you are to be targeted first.

Are there firmware or driver upgrades for either device in case it's a know problem that can be fixed ?

Capt'n Midnight

Kismet will give you a MAC list.

The Caffe Latte tool can recover cached 128-bit WEP keys from any client in roughly six minutes.
In 2005 a group from the FBI held a demonstration where they used publicly available tools to break a WEP encrypted network in three minutes.
If that weren’t bad enough, the time it takes to crack WEP only grows linearly with key length.

FruitLover

Spear wrote: »

WEP and MAC filtering are the same as no security.

This is silly. WEP and/or MAC filtering will protect against someone accidentally connecting to your network, and will protect against the most casual attacks. Not what I'd call significant security, but to say it's equivalent to leaving your network wide open is fearmongering.

FruitLover

Have you been able to try it with a different AP/router?

Barlow07

JonnyXXX wrote: »

I installed a new wireless dongle into my laptop. I ran the install CD ect.

But it is telling me that i have limited or no connectivity.

From experience that is a error for a WEP key, its not getting a IP address so its not connected.

If its windows XP try using windows to configure your wireless.

Control panel > Administrative Tools > Double Click Services > Third last option Wireless Zero double click and make sure Start Up set to Automatic and click start.

Then Right click your wireless connection, select view available wireless connections, select Advanced options on the bottom left > Wireless networks > Tick the box to Control your wireless connection.

At the bottom Preffered networks you should see your wireless, click it once and select properties you should see a option for WEP and it will display your characters your typing.

One last thing make your WEP is set to 128-bit

Spear

FruitLover wrote: »

This is silly. WEP and/or MAC filtering will protect against someone accidentally connecting to your network, and will protect against the most casual attacks. Not what I'd call significant security, but to say it's equivalent to leaving your network wide open is fearmongering.

Using WPA stops accidental access and all but the most determined of attackers. Given how many Eircom users around me still have the default WEP keys in use, despite national news coverage and leaflets from Eircom, I don't think it's possible to understate how much people need to use WPA.