Note: It has come to my attention that the e-mail address listed in the readme for xwepgen is incorrect. Anyone trying to reach me with questions or bug reports should mail me at apparissus@users.sourceforge.net. Sorry about the inconvenience.

xwepgen lets Mac OS X users use WEP passphrases from nearly all non-Apple 802.11b software and hardware to connect to encrypted wireless networks.

Devices connecting via encrypted 802.11b network use a WEP key to encrypt the data they send. An actual WEP key looks like: 57EAB0FF for a 40-bit (64-bit) link, and similar, though longer, for a 104-bit (128-bit) link.

However, some 802.11b hardware and software (Apple products, many Linksys, Lucent, D-Link, and other products) have the user input a passphrase instead of an actual WEP key. These products then use some algorithm to convert the passphrase to a WEP key.

The problem Mac users face is that Apples passphrase-to-key algorithm differs from the one used by most other products. Using xwepgen, Apple users can input a Linksys/DLink/Lucent/etc. passphrase, and get the WEP key to use in airport password dialogues.

xwepgen is freely ditributed under the GNU General Public License. If you have any problems or questions, visit the project's Sourceforge page or e-mail apparissus@users.sourceforge.net.

Stuck using Windows, Linux, BSD, or others? Mike Litherland is working on a Java version just for you: JWepGen.