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Llama

Member

From: St.-Petersburg, Russia

Registered: 2008-03-03

Posts: 1,199

WPA: reasonable key length

Hi, All,

WPA key length is required to be 8...63 characters; what would be a reasonable, non-paranoid choice ?

sniffles

Member

Registered: 2008-01-23

Posts: 275

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

Have "snifflesroxorsmyboxorshard" as yor key. Seriously, you have to ask the Arch community for suggestions on this? Grow some cojones, be a man and chose a key length yourself.

.:B:.

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,818

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

When it comes to security, you always go with the paranoid choice...

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bangkok_manouel

Member

From: indicates a starting point

Registered: 2005-02-07

Posts: 1,554

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

advice from a random guy on the internet: 20. free of charge, a key generator:
http://www.kurtm.net/wpa-pskgen/

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iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

A wpa key _can_ be a phrase, so pick something that you'll remember, but others wont know.

Seriously... just anything in that range that you'll remember that couldnt be dictionary forced and you should be sweet.

Last edited by iphitus (2008-06-19 07:48:30)

Misfit138

Misfit Emeritus

From: USA

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 4,167

Website

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

Make it hard.
Seriously, a close friend of mine consistently cracks WEP in less than 1 minute, and he cracks WPA quite often with the aid of a brute force type dictionary attack.

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INCSlayer

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2007-09-06

Posts: 296

Website

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

well wep is not a properly secure protocol anything today can crack wep in under a minute and a dictionary attack is not quite the same as a brute force attack but close enough
and the only reason that dictionary attacks work is because generally speaking people are stupid and use passphrases like computer or swordfish (its always swordfish )

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Llama

Member

From: St.-Petersburg, Russia

Registered: 2008-03-03

Posts: 1,199

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

bangkok_manouel, your key generator is way too hard to crack . The first key was rejected by the router (won't remember it). The second key accepted by the router but the network profile on the notebook isn't parsing correctly. I tried to replace the key string double quotes with single quotes, no use. Any suggestions ?

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 3,528

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

When using strin keys, use a phass phrase instead of some mangled word. It's safer and easier to remember.
'banana banana terracotta pie' is easier to remember than h3dv9xg  bit it's way easier to remember. (and it's even stronger if you switch some chars to special letters or numbers)

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bangkok_manouel

Member

From: indicates a starting point

Registered: 2005-02-07

Posts: 1,554

Re: WPA: reasonable key length

bangkok_manouel, your key generator is way too hard to crack . The first key was rejected by the router (won't remember it). The second key accepted by the router but the network profile on the notebook isn't parsing correctly. I tried to replace the key string double quotes with single quotes, no use. Any suggestions ?

yeah i think you should not use any ' or " just replace them by some random character.

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All design goals must be phrased in such a way that it is hard to use them as slogans to justify stupidity.