wep vs. wpa performance

Hello,
I just bought a dlink wireless router. I configured it for wpa psk.
On my laptop, I couldn't pick up an IP address (the router was set for
dhcp). It just stopped at "acquiring network address".
I configured it for wep, and I can connect no problem. I know wep is
an older technology.
Will configuring it for wep hinder the speed, or, more importantly for
me, the range of my wireless network. Or is wpa/wep just related to
encryption and won't make a difference.

Thanks

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:56:31 -0700, in alt.internet.wireless , Japhy
<japhyrider2005@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Hello,
>I just bought a dlink wireless router. I configured it for wpa psk.
>On my laptop, I couldn't pick up an IP address (the router was set for
>dhcp). It just stopped at "acquiring network address".
>I configured it for wep, and I can connect no problem.

Almost certainly you have the WPA key wrong. Its easy to mistype these
keys and most clients hide the text with asterisks so you don't notice
the typo.

>Will configuring it for wep hinder the speed, or, more importantly for
>me, the range of my wireless network. Or is wpa/wep just related to
>encryption and won't make a difference.

The difference is that WEP can be cracked in a matter of minutes,
possibly even faster.
--
Mark McIntyre

On Jun 24, 3:24 pm, Mark McIntyre <markmcint...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:56:31 -0700, in alt.internet.wireless , Japhy
>
> <japhyrider2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Hello,
> >I just bought a dlink wireless router. I configured it for wpa psk.
> >On my laptop, I couldn't pick up an IP address (the router was set for
> >dhcp). It just stopped at "acquiring network address".
> >I configured it for wep, and I can connect no problem.
>
> Almost certainly you have the WPA key wrong. Its easy to mistype these
> keys and most clients hide the text with asterisks so you don't notice
> the typo.
>
> >Will configuring it for wep hinder the speed, or, more importantly for
> >me, the range of my wireless network. Or is wpa/wep just related to
> >encryption and won't make a difference.
>
> The difference is that WEP can be cracked in a matter of minutes,
> possibly even faster.
> --
> Mark McIntyre

Thanks for the reply. Does performance suffer as well? ie speed and/
or range
TIA

On Jun 24, 8:52 pm, Japhy <japhyrider2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jun 24, 3:24 pm, Mark McIntyre <markmcint...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:56:31 -0700, in alt.internet.wireless , Japhy
>
> > <japhyrider2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >Hello,
> > >I just bought a dlink wireless router. I configured it for wpa psk.
> > >On my laptop, I couldn't pick up an IP address (the router was set for
> > >dhcp). It just stopped at "acquiring network address".
> > >I configured it for wep, and I can connect no problem.
>
> > Almost certainly you have the WPA key wrong. Its easy to mistype these
> > keys and most clients hide the text with asterisks so you don't notice
> > the typo.
>
> > >Will configuring it for wep hinder the speed, or, more importantly for
> > >me, the range of my wireless network. Or is wpa/wep just related to
> > >encryption and won't make a difference.
>
> > The difference is that WEP can be cracked in a matter of minutes,
> > possibly even faster.
> > --
> > Mark McIntyre
>
> Thanks for the reply. Does performance suffer as well? ie speed and/
> or range
> TIA

Not that you'd notice. And ... wireless connection manager matters
too,
IME. Though you tell us nothing about OS or connection manager.

IME, MS's "Wireless Zero Configuration" manager is enormously more
reliable/robust than those provided by some h/w vendors.

Some things are a wee bit more involved than light-bulbs. :')

J

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 17:52:18 -0700, in alt.internet.wireless , Japhy
<japhyrider2005@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Jun 24, 3:24 pm, Mark McIntyre <markmcint...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:56:31 -0700, in alt.internet.wireless , Japhy
>>
>> The difference is that WEP can be cracked in a matter of minutes,
>> possibly even faster.

>Thanks for the reply. Does performance suffer as well? ie speed and/
>or range

If anything, WEP would probably be slightly quicker because its a
simpler algo.

However if you really need to worry about the impact of encryption on
bandwidth, wireless is the wrong choice for you. With wireless G you
could get anything from 0.5Mb to 25Mb depending on walls, distance,
weather, people standing in the wrong place, lights being on or off,
etc etc etc.

--
Mark McIntyre

Japhy <japhyrider2005@yahoo.com> hath wroth:

>I just bought a dlink wireless router.

Obviously, all Dlink routers are identical. If you can figure out how
to identify what you just purchased, you might also try checking if it
has the latest firmware installed.

>I configured it for wpa psk.

Good.

>On my laptop, I couldn't pick up an IP address (the router was set for
>dhcp). It just stopped at "acquiring network address".

That usually means you goofed on typing the WPA-PSK key. MS decided
that you didn't need connection progress indication for wireless. So,
you can't really tell what failed. If your sure you have the WPA-PSK
key typed correctly, then the other possibility is that you have a MAC
or IP address filter enabled in your unspecified model DLink wireless
router. If this unit was one returned by some previous customer, it
could easily have setting left from their mis-adventure. If so, punch
the reset button and start over.

>I configured it for wep, and I can connect no problem. I know wep is
>an older technology.

WEP is easily cracked and offers little security. Go back to WPA-PSK
and try again.

>Will configuring it for wep hinder the speed, or, more importantly for
>me, the range of my wireless network. Or is wpa/wep just related to
>encryption and won't make a difference.

It really depends on the router. Underpowered old routers don't like
the encryption overhead and will slow down somewhat. My guess is
about 10-15% for either WEP or WPA on older units. In many cases,
it's also affected by the speed of the client computah, especially if
the WPA encryption is done in driver. Fortunately, this hasn't been
the case for many years. These daze, there's hardly any slowdown of
either technology.

However, there's a huge difference in security between WEP and WPA.
WPA was invented because WEP security absolutly sucks. Go back to
WPA-PSK and figure out what went wrong. If you can't type, use
cut-n-past to insert the pass phrase.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:1od28351e28q8qi9p1d2ht5vg8937o4vu7@4ax.com...
> However, there's a huge difference in security between WEP and WPA.
> WPA was invented because WEP security absolutly sucks.

Speaking of security, Jeff, is it possible to match the security in cabled
LAN? Or just a pipe dream?

What about if you use Linux?

Just learning, ya know........

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:14:41 GMT, "Travis McGee" <nothere@aol.com>
wrote:

>
>"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
>news:1od28351e28q8qi9p1d2ht5vg8937o4vu7@4ax.com.. .
>> However, there's a huge difference in security between WEP and WPA.
>> WPA was invented because WEP security absolutly sucks.
>
>Speaking of security, Jeff, is it possible to match the security in cabled
>LAN? Or just a pipe dream?

Security for you or for the cable company (ISP)? I don't think you've
seen how bad cable modem security was when it was first implimented.
Cable modems use DHCP to deliver more than just IP addresses. It
delivers rate caps, encryption keys, and other goodies. The initial
implimentation allowed for a user to setup their own DHCP server, and
feed the cable modem whatever values seemed interesting. That giant
hole was eventually plugged and it's now quite secure. It is possible
to butcher a cable modem to sniff traffic on your network segment
(usually about 2000 IP addresses), but the DOCSIS BPI+ (Baseline
Privacy Plus) is quite secure from casual hacking.

In general WPA-PSK is not quite as secure as BPI+ because of the
shared key problem. A shared key can be stolen, copied, or extracted
from user accessible machines (client computahs). For example:
<http://www.wirelessdefence.org/Contents/Aircrack-ng_WinWzcook.htm>
BPI+ uses a much better key exchange mechanisms and is therefore
better. However, if you use WPA-RADIUS, which requires a RADIUS
server, there is no shared key to steal, copy, or extract. So, if you
want security as good as cable, then get a RADIUS server (or 802.1x
service) and use WPA-RADIUS.

Incidentally, BPI+ only uses RSA DES 40/56 bit encryption, which is
good enough for the purpose as long as the key exchange mechanism is
secure. This should underscore the not so well understood concept
that longer encryption keys don't necessarily mean better security if
the IV (initialization vector) mechanism is flawed, and the key
exchange mechanism is faulty.

>What about if you use Linux?

Use Linux for what? DD-WRT is Linux. Both Buffalo and Linksys
firmware is based on Linux, which is why we have open source code to
play with and improve. Linux is not some magic bullet that solves all
problems.

>Just learning, ya know........

My method is Learn By Destroying. If you haven't broken something,
and then repaired it, you don't understand it.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS