WEP And My Ibook Problems

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Hi guys, this is the first time I have posted here but I have been lurking around these forums a bit lately.

Ok I have a bit of a problem, I have only just switched over to using a mac from a pc and as such don't have much experience with technical issues so please don't shoot me down in flames if this is simple!!

I'm running an ibook G4 (pretty dated I know!) with the Leopard OS. Ok I have recently moved into a new apartment where they are running a network using a wanadoo router. On the network is an XBOX 360 and 2 windows laptops that all run fine with the wireless. The network is WEP encrypted and the WEP number is FB32C4137CE92A244C48AF386B.

When I try to join the network with my mac I am prompted for a password but it says it needs a WPA password instead of the WEP password. I have tried entering in the WEP password but it does not work. I have also tried it with $ sign at the beginning but no joy.

I logged into the router to verify that the WEP key was correct and it was.

Following this I loaded up the mac in safe mode and joined a new network, typed in the name of the network here and in security type selected WEP password from the drop down box, I entered the WEP key and still it refused me...I think I got the message "see administrator" I tried this again with the $ sign and tried all the other security types but none of them would let me passed.

I'm connected fine with the ethernet cable right so the router obviously accepts my computer.

Can anybody offer any advice that doesn't involve changing the router security to WPA because if I do I will screw up everyone elses connection in the house. I know that WEP is pretty useless as a security measure in the grand scheme of things and know that WPA is much more suitable but at the moment WEP will be fine.

Many thanks

Ross
 

cwa107


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Any particular reason you're using WEP?

I only ask because WEP is incredibly outdated and is all but useless as a means of securing a network. It can be cracked in less than 5 minutes with readily available tools.

If you can, have the network owner switch it to WPA. You'll have to reconnect your client devices, but the benefits will be well worth it. WPA uses simple passwords, is faster and far more secure.
 
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Hi, I know exactly what you mean about WEP being useless these days but unfortunately the network owner is very much stuck in her ways and has the theory that if it aint broke don't fix it!

I completely agree that it would make much more sense to simply switch over to WPA and reconnect the devices and if I owned the network I would do just that.

So despite the obvious security flaws with WEP I still need to gain access to the network. I still don't understand why my mac won't connect using the WEP key when it is definitely correct and the other computers and XBOX on the network connect fine using that exact WEP key that I'm trying to use. Am I missing something really simple because this just seems like a pretty stupid problem to be having!

Cheers

Ross
 

cwa107


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Your Mac's Specs
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Try prefacing the WEP key with a $
 

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