Does my computer have WiFi?

[rubah]

my isp gave me a crappy rebranded modem that *thinks* it's a router.

[o_O]

WPA is quite a bit more secure and quite a bit less supported. Cracking a WEP is rather problematic too though. Bruteforce is all nice and fun, but considering the fact that most routers give good delays between inputs and ban your cards ID for a day after a serious number of tries, does make it rather useless. The other alternative, being the decryption of seperate transmitted packages, is also rather hopeless leading to naught due to inconsistancies during the transfer.

It's true that WPA is less supported than WEP, but with the exception of devices like a PSP or DS, almost all wireless NICs support it out of the box and if they don't there's usually a firmware or software upgrade to enable WPA support. Even my phone supports WPA. The whole purpose of the design of WPA was to make a more secure encryption scheme without breaking compatibility with older hardware.
A 40 bit WEP key can be cracked in about a minute, and not much longer for longer keys. You don't need to use bruteforce because you can decrypt the IP datagrams to obtain the key. The only algorithm that actually implements any sort of "banning" is WPA because the developers knew it would have to comply with older hardware and couldn't be as strong as they needed it to be. Banning a particular client is almost useless anyway, since a MAC address is easily spoofable.

[Discord]

WPA is more secure, no questions there. I still doubt that one can take out a WEP code in a minute though. Plus, where did you get the number 40 from? They're all either 64 or 128 bit based.

[Yamaneko]

64 bit encrypted WEP uses a 40 bit key.

[crono_logical]

From a quick google search:

WEP is a protocol for securing wireless LAN. WEP therefore uses the RC4 stream to encrypt data which is transmitted over the air, using usually a single secret key (called the root key or WEP key) of a length of 40 or 104 bit.

We were able to extend Klein’s attack and optimize it for usage against WEP. Using our version, it is possible to recover a 104 bit WEP key with probability 50% using just 40,000 captured packets. For 60,000 available data packets, the success probability is about 80% and for 85,000 data packets about 95%. Using active techniques like deauth and ARP re-injection, 40,000 packets can be captured in less than one minute under good condition. The actual computation takes about 3 seconds and 3 MB main memory on a Pentium-M 1.7 GHz and can additionally be optimized for devices with slower CPUs. The same attack can be used for 40 bit keys too with an even higher success probability.

Under 1 minute for 104-bit keys (or 128-bit encryption) sounds insecure to me If you want to get your hands on such software to prove it for yourself, just look around for the linux distro BackTrack, it's a bootable ISO image too so you don't need to install anything

[Discord]

Time to switch to WPA then...

Not that I have any shared folders or anything worth taking, other than my bandwidth anyway.

[crono_logical]

Bandwidth is usually what people who run botnets, spamnets or illegal xdcc/ftp servers want anyway, not your personal files That's the same attitude people who don't want to run virus scanners/firewalls take - they think no-one wants or is interested in their data so it's not worth the effort to protect, when in fact it's the computer resources that they're after

[Mirage]

256bit WPA please.

[Discord]

Bandwidth is usually what people who run botnets, spamnets or illegal xdcc/ftp servers want anyway, not your personal files That's the same attitude people who don't want to run virus scanners/firewalls take - they think no-one wants or is interested in their data so it's not worth the effort to protect, when in fact it's the computer resources that they're after

Well, it certainly does matter for somebody using a laptop with the latest feedback from the accountancy and project management departments. Most companies don't want that data out in public and, mind you, there are enough people who want it dearly.

This of course doesn't apply for the casual home PC.

[rubah]

My encryption is a dead end road with a 'no trespassing' sign and dead cow skulls hanging up, and neighbors who all have their own internet.