Airport Access to WPA Network in OS 9

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Level 2

475 points

Airport Access to WPA Network in OS 9

I recently acquired a MDD G4 with an installed Airport card. The card works fine in Tiger and I accessed my home network by entering the 20-something digit WPA access code. No problem.

However, when I boot into OS 9.2.2 and try the same thing I'm thwarted by the fact that the code enter window in OS 9 Airport is limited to about a dozen characters. I can't find anything in Airport HELP to resolve this and would appreciate any help from the OS 9 forum members on this subject.

BTW, I've been using OS 9 for years on a Beige G3, but this is the first Airport card I've had to work with. My wireless network was established last year for a PC notebook I purchased at that time.

Beige G3 MT, Mac OS X (10.4.8), MDD G4, Dual 1.25 GHz 2MB-L3, 2 GB RAM, ATI 9600, DVR-111D, ADS Tech USB2/Firewi

Posted on Oct 17, 2006 8:34 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Simon Teale

Level 5

4,684 points

Oct 17, 2006 10:03 PM in response to CEB II

Carl,

OS9 Airport, upgraded to it's latest version (v2.0.4), still only supports the WEP encryption standard, to 128 bit. Earlier OS9 Airport (before v2) only supports the 40/64-bit WEP encryption standard.
This is further complicated by any documentation you find for OS9 Airport explicitly stating that 128-bit WEP is not supported.

If you're not satisfied with the response in the OS9 forum, post again in the AirPort forum, this question comes up again and again there.

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Answer 2

CEB II Author

Level 2

475 points

Oct 17, 2006 10:12 PM in response to Simon Teale

Thanks for the quick response. So the WPA versus WEP encryption is the reason for so many extra digits in the access code?

I guess I knew there was an Airport forum, but I thought it would be dealing with issues more exotic and modern than my little OS 9 problem. I'll post my question there as well just to see what I can find out.

Carl B.

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Answer 3

Oct 18, 2006 10:47 AM in response to CEB II

Carl,

Not really to do with the length of the password.

Keeping it very simple,

WEP uses a hash of the password to encrypt all the wireless network traffic.

So does WPA, but it cycles the hash of the password with each transmission, to make it harder to try to decode the encrypted network traffic (by listening in to gigabytes of traffic looking for patterns).

WEP doesn't help by encrypting even the standard network data, ie. packet headers, which have a known format of bits. This gives those who are determined enough part of the hashing key with no effort. Of course, with each transmission they can only get the same part of the hash again.

As you so cleverly pointed out, showing up the wireless network geeks who scoff at WEP, saying WPA is the only secure option, if you chose a simple password that appears in the dictionary for example, then even under WPA, someone can break into the network in under a few minutes of effort.

I'm not sure that you have to live with keying the long hex password in any encryption method. I think because AirPort guesses at the encryption method used when prompting you for your password. As I can remember, you can change the "WEP Password" (or whatever) option when keying your password, to "WEP 128bit ASCII" or "WEP 40bit ASCII" and key the plain text password, ie. @pple .

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Answer 4

CEB II Author

Level 2

475 points

Oct 19, 2006 9:45 AM in response to Simon Teale

Thanks for the response. I posted this issue on the Airport forum and was provided a link to an Apple technical article that confirms that Airport software for OS 9 will not allow access to any WPA encrypted network. Since I was only trying to determine if Airport didn't work for me in OS 9 because I might be doing something incorrectly, the issue is closed. I see little likelihood that I will ever need to use Airport access while booted in OS 9 as I primarily rely on wired internet for my MDD G4 and I usually access the internet while booted in Tiger.

Carl B.

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