3Com 3CRWE51196 User Guide - Page 36

36 CHAPTER 5: GATEWAY CONFIGURATION Encryption Figure 31 Encryption Screen Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP allows you to encrypt the traffic between your Wireless PC and the Gateway. It is important to remember that with WEP disabled anyone with a Wireless PC can eavesdrop on your network. 3Com recommends that you get the network working with WEP disabled first and then enable it as the last step. This will simplify setting up your network. If you enable WEP on the Gateway, you must reconfigure your wireless PCs to use exactly the same Encryption Type and Keys otherwise the devices will not understand each other. WEP is for securing data transmitted through wireless communications between the Gateway and it's wireless clients. Enabling WEP has no security effect on data transmitted through wired (Ethernet) connections or through your connections to the Internet. Wireless Encryption Type There are two levels of encryption available, 64 bit (sometimes referred to as 40 bit) and 128 bit. 128 bit will result in a higher level of security, but may cause a slight decrease in performance. Use the "Wireless Encryption Type" box to select the desired level. Encryption Keys Figure 32 Encryption Keys Screen A Key is a hexadecimal (0-9, A-F) number used to encrypt and decrypt the data. There can be up to 4 keys and each key can be as long as 26 digits. The Gateway also offers a number of methods for converting plain text into hex keys. The text is much easier to remember than hex keys but it relies on your wireless adapters also