How to set a WEP key in hexadecimal (26 characters)

Question

Hi everyone,
I am installing an airport extreme 802.11n base station in my office and I need to keep the same WEP key as my previous access point. The format of the key is 26 hexadecimal digits.
In the setup utility I tried to prefix the digits with a dollar sign but I doesn't seem to work with the new model (it keeps saying that I can only use 13 characters). I also tried to convert the key to ASCII but it is still rejected (probably because of the weird ASCII characters).
Any suggestions?
Cheers,
Thomas

Answer 1

One of the problems with WEP is that the actual standard relies on a 10 character HEX key for 40bit WEP and a 26 character HEX key for 128bit WEP.
In order to make things easier for people, vendors use certain algorithms to convert simple alphanumeric passwords (or passphrases) into HEX keys, thus enabling people to use simple memorable WEP password rather than lengthy HEX keys.
The problem is that different vendors use different algorithms to generate the HEX key and therefore a ASCII password on an AEBS will be hashed differently on a Netgear client and vice versa.
One thing is a 13 character 128 bit WEP password will be hashed by all vendors in the same way (if you use 40bit WEP then a 5 character password is required).
Though sometimes not even that works and the HEX key must be used regardless.
AirPort: Joining an encrypted wireless network
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106424
Choosing a password for networks that use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108058
WPA
"WPA Personal" on the Mac corresponds to plain WPA, with a pre-shared key (PSK) and TKIP encryption, on non-Apple wireless routers. The same alphanumeric password should work on both.