Jornada 720 wep problem

Hi everybody,
this week i had a problem with my Jornada 720 and Netgear wifi card.
I have been in a hotel and they gave me free wifi connection but the key was 26 characters and my Netgear setting window didn't accept it.
What can one do in such a case to enter a key that I suppose to be 256 byte?

It's WEP128. Not all cards accept this encoding. I dunno what about Netgear.

A known problem with some prism driver (assuming 128-bit WEP is supported) is that they don't all utilise the same conversion process between passphrases and WEP keys. Often you need to enter the HEX pairs instead of the passphrase in order to get it to work.

WEP 128 works perfectly. Instead when using a longer password (I had one of 26 character) in text box KEY it doesn't accept more than 16teen (wep 128) in Hex, so i can't arrive to 26. If i try passphrase in plain text or Hex (in passphrase text box) it doesn't work.
So the question is if one can use a wifi password longer than 16teen char as wep key.

I always use 26 characters in hex.

With Jornada or Mobilepro? On passphrase or Key box of Prism settings?

Yes. On Jornada 720/728 and MP900C. Prism-based card. Always hex key instead of passphrase.

Edited by CAuser 2009-04-06 5:16 PM

You can only use a longer passphrase if the phrase is hashed down into the standard 26 characters. If the hash alg differs from the one on the router clearly it will not match and the phrase will not work.

I don't get the point. Let me get it straight.

I had this password "12345678901234567890123456". where must had it be written?
In passphrase as "123435 etc"? or in key as "31323334etc"? In both cases it doesnt' work. First case doesn't work. Second case I can't write all those char.
How can I set that password? If it works for you must be somthing I did wrong.
Thanks

Remember, we are talking about 128bit WEP. Your passphrase 'mypass' should translate to something like '283c7f90b...' in hex as hexadecimals go from 0 to 9 plus a to f (0123456789abcdef).

I know that pass has to be written in HEx.

At home I write "mypass" in HEX in the key text box. And it works.

At the hotel where I used to stay I wrote the pass "12345678901234567890123456" in HEx that is "31323334etc" because ascii numbers become 31 32 33 34 etc, but doesn't work.
I want to undestand where is the error.

The passphrase is not necessarly generated using the ANSI/ASCII page code. Many routers / AP's will for example allow a passphrase to be used that is longer than the required field length, or for that matter, shorter. In this sitation the system will use a hash algorithm to generate the correct length HEX key - it will not use ANSI/ASCII.

Therefore because you're keying in 1234567890... and getting 313233... does not mean that you are transmitting the HEX pair sequence that the AP is expecting when it was configured.

Emphasis on hash.

Going to the point how I would had done to let it work?

You cannot use the passphrase, you either have to get the hotel to give you the hex pairs, or have access to a website/applet/app which can generate the correct hex string for you.

This is a real problem indeed if the employee dont't know anything about wep key/hash etc.

So I can use a proggy that generates a hex key from a passphrase.

I'd like to learn more on how wep key algo works. Can you suggest a document?