Question

view wireless key on mac

Asked by: mrvan

I want to connect to my wireless network  but I don't have access to my router. I have one Mac laptop set up with the wireless key and want to retreive it from the mac and put it into my pc (laptop) so that I can access the internet. I have unfortunately never worked on a Mac before and do not know how to recover the wireless key.

The mac connects to the wireless network through a Wireless Airport network connection. How can I view the wireless network key (password)?

Thank you for your time.

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Asked On
2006-12-02 at 06:07:17ID22080109
Tags

key

,

wireless

,

view

,

mac

Topics

Apple Operating Systems

,

Appletalk

,

Apple

Participating Experts
1
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-12-02 at 06:15:12ID: 18059697

How are you going to access the internet if you don't have access to the router? I don't understand your problem. The easiest way to get the WEP key is to log into your router. Passwords do not normally display on Macs or other computers.

However you may be able to retrieve the password using the Keychain Access application found in Applications:Utilities. If you can't retrieve it from there, you are going to have to retrieve it from the router.

 

by: mrvanPosted on 2006-12-02 at 06:27:51ID: 18059740

It is a long story. We share the internet with our neighbours upstairs, but we are not in good terms. The router is upstairs and I don't have access to it. They have flooded our flat and we had mega dammage to our stuff downstairs. Now because the have to pay for the dammage, we do not have a to good relationship going on.
My friend's mac is configured with the internet key, so I want to get my laptop on the net aswell.
Thanks for the advice, but I will need to find a way to get the key from the mac. I realize it is going to be a bit tricky, but there should always be a way of doing these sort of things ;-)

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-12-02 at 06:30:25ID: 18059744

Try the kechain app. If you can find the keychain entry for the WEP key, there is a check box for "show password". I  think that is your only hope. However, if your neighbour is on bad terms with you, it is possible he or she may have changed the WEP key.

 

by: mrvanPosted on 2006-12-02 at 10:41:51ID: 18060427

Thanks for the advice. I was able to view the wep key through keychain. I have copied the wep key and pasted into my pc wireless configuration. After pasting the key and clicking on OK, it tells me I can only use 0-9 and A-F hexadesimal characters. My wep key looks something like this and it does not want to accept it. 0x7449bfbf09a719ca9f92cefd02
I think the problem comes in with the "x" in the key. Have you got an idea what could be wrong.
thanks

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-12-02 at 11:52:35ID: 18060669

Try leaving out the 0x. I have a suspicion that may be a code to indicate the rest of the password is hex, not ASCII.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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