Wireless lan cards & windows

[Musrat]

A neat feature of Windows XP is that it notices when you insert a wireless LAN (WLAN) card for the first time, and prompts you to remind you that out of the box, it's insecure and you should set a key pair between the card and the access point.
Bear in mind, though, that XP is the first Windows incarnation to do this - if you're with Windows 98/2000, you won't be prompted.
So make sure you turn the security options on, regardless of whether you're running a version of Windows that will prompt you!

[Devasis]

when are they going to get rid of those awful fixed WEP keys. Got more than two LAN cards? Nightmare. Anyone else got a way round this?

[Musrat]

It's getting there. There's not a lot you can do about a stand-alone wireless LAN setup, because the client and the access point have to know the right key, and it's messy. However, because the access point can identify itself, and the client can remember the key you've entered for a given access point, at least it's a one-off exercise.

And if you do want to integrate the encryption key lark into your network infrastructure, you can. Cisco, for one, has a mechanism for connecting the wireless key stuff (albeit in a Cisco way that is far from being accepted as a standard) within the network authentication process, the 802.11x stuff, and so on.

So there's a way to go, and you're right that it's a faff, but it's reassuring that at least some progress is being made.