Question : WEP - Open vs. Shared

What is the difference between "Open" and "Shared" when you are talking about your wireless network.

For instance, this is from our AP setup page:

Service Set Identifiers (SSIDs)
SSID  |  VLAN  |   Radio  |   BSSID/Guest Mode  |   Open  |   Shared  |   Network EAP |
MHWPN     Radio0-802.11G      0013.xxxx.xxxx    no addition    

Answer : WEP - Open vs. Shared

What you are talking about is the authentication process.  This is the first of 2 steps when connecting to a wireless network

"Open authentication" is more permissive but much more secure. The client is authenticate if its SSID match the AP's SSID.  Open authentication mode does not use WEP key. The WEP key is only used to encrypted data when association process is done.

"Shared authentication" is based on a WEP key exchange. The AP send a chalenge in clear text to the client.  The client respond with an encrypted version of the challenge. Then the AP verify if it match the expected answer and put the client in forward mode.

The security problem with shared mode is that an hacker sniffing the traffic or acting as rogue AP can determine in few seconds what the WEP is since he have both encrypted and decrypted version of the challenge.