How to add an encrypted WEP to Airport network

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Level 1

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How to add an encrypted WEP to Airport network

My husband must use his old flowerpot iMac for the OS 9 needed to run Claris Homepage (he's memory challenged now and can't learn a new authoring program). Everything else in our home is on WPA2, so we made a Guest with no encryption. We've just discovered that a neighbor who terrorizes our neighborhood and whom we don't know (he's the only one near enough) is using the Guest. Given our lack of a relationship we'd feel better is we could encrypt with the WEP the flowerpot uses. This Apple Support page below seems to indicate we can, and yet I can't make sense of it. Could someone translate it to simpler terms? I'm very comfortable tweaking Airport Utility configurations, I just don't get this.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1126

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), MBP Retina • iMac • iPad 3 • Touch

Posted on Dec 4, 2012 4:53 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Bob Timmons

Community+ 2024

Level 10

159,170 points

Dec 4, 2012 5:54 AM in response to OrganicBooks

Unfortunately, the Guest Network on the AirPorts only offers 3 security options:

None

WPA/WPA2 Personal

WPA2 Personal

So it is not possible to configure the Guest network to use WEP encyption.

A possible workaround might be to add an older used AirPort Express and configure it to provide a separate network using WEP encryption.

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Answer 2

Dec 4, 2012 7:35 AM in response to OrganicBooks

Another option would be to add a new AirPort Express and configure it to "extend" the wireless network. Then connect the old computer to the Express using an Ethernet cable and turn off wireless on the computer.

The possible advantage to doing it this way is that you will have more wireless network coverage with the addition of the Express, so other wireless devices should pick up a stronger signal in the area where the Express is located.

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Answer 3

OrganicBooks Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 4, 2012 8:16 AM in response to Bob Timmons

These are very helpful, but doesn't the article I cited seem to suggest another way?

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Answer 4

Dec 4, 2012 10:51 AM in response to OrganicBooks

The article is talking about options for the "main" network.

The "Guest" network feature has never had an option to use WEP, so the article....while interesting....would not apply to your Guest Network question.

In any case, WEP is long out of date and easily cracked by any number of free utilities available on the Internet.

Even if you could enable WEP for the Guest Network, any teenage kid with a laptop would probably already have the tools on his comuter to crack the network in a few seconds. Unfortunately, there are plenty of sites that kids visit that tell them how to do this.

Any way to connect an Ethernet cable from your router to the computer? That would be the "best" way to do this.

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