Comment Re:For security. (Score 1) 28
WEP is an optional part of 802.11.
That's both 802.11a and 802.11b...BOTH can use WEP. To my knowledge 802.11a does not have any additional security measures over 802.11b in the spec. However, many cards being released implement an additional standard called 802.1x, which is better than WEP, but has also been criticised as being insecure. Also some cards (actually many cards these days) have been released with vendor-specific additions to WEP, such as longer keys...any card that claims 128- or 156-bit encryption is one of these. This doesn't really help though, since the flaw in WEP that causes it to be insecure means that doubling the encryption key length only DOUBLES the time that it takes to crack. So if it takes 1 hr to crack WEP at 64 bits, it only takes 2 hrs. to crack WEP at 128 bits.
This is in contrast to secure encrytion where a brute force attack doubles with every additional bit in the key, i.e. 1 hr at 64 bits -> 18446744073709551616 hrs. at 128 bits.
Also users should note that in WEP the first 24 bits of the key ARE NOT SECRET. So a 64-bit WEP key is really only 40 bit encrytion (but they wont tell you that on the box of your network card!)
That's both 802.11a and 802.11b...BOTH can use WEP. To my knowledge 802.11a does not have any additional security measures over 802.11b in the spec. However, many cards being released implement an additional standard called 802.1x, which is better than WEP, but has also been criticised as being insecure. Also some cards (actually many cards these days) have been released with vendor-specific additions to WEP, such as longer keys...any card that claims 128- or 156-bit encryption is one of these. This doesn't really help though, since the flaw in WEP that causes it to be insecure means that doubling the encryption key length only DOUBLES the time that it takes to crack. So if it takes 1 hr to crack WEP at 64 bits, it only takes 2 hrs. to crack WEP at 128 bits.
This is in contrast to secure encrytion where a brute force attack doubles with every additional bit in the key, i.e. 1 hr at 64 bits -> 18446744073709551616 hrs. at 128 bits.
Also users should note that in WEP the first 24 bits of the key ARE NOT SECRET. So a 64-bit WEP key is really only 40 bit encrytion (but they wont tell you that on the box of your network card!)
