Need help with this one....

[ardvark]

Hello all.....

I have a question that actually concerns a friend of mine but I'm helping her solve it. I am trying to set up a WEP password for her wireless DSL but her service only allows 64, 128 or 256 bit "something," I assume encryption. This particular box was directly to the right of where you could enter the password of your choice.
However, when we rebooted the modem and her copy of Windows XP Pro asked for the password, a window popped up informing me that the connection could only accept 40 bit or 104 bit. So I was forced to attach a network cable to her laptop from the modem to reestablish the wireless connection the way it was originally. When I called Qwest's DSL tech support, the gentleman I spoke with suggested that the issue had something to do with the Antivirus program (which is Avast, version 4.6.) He thought it might be "influencing" the way Windows handles the connection. This theory gained a bit more credence when I was rebooting the modem with the WEP password in place when the "page not found" message came up with the words at the very bottom: "Avast Web Proxy."

Is this problem connected with Avast and if so, how can this be fixed?  I don't deal with DSL connections very often so it's still touch and go with some of the fine points.

Thank you in advance for your kind assistance

Best regards....

[igor]

Well, the "page not found" may simply mean that the page cannot be reached, no matter if it's coming from avast! proxy or the web browser directly. In any case, you can easily test your theory by stopping the Web Shield provider of avast! resident protection. If it doesn't help, it's not likely to be a conflict with avast!.

I don't know much about wireless stuff so I may be wrong, but recently I read something (concerning WiFi) about 104 bits encryption actually being exactly the same as 128 bit (and 40 bit being the same as 64 bit) - just called differently (i.e. somebody counting even the non-key bits and somebody only the real ones, but speaking about the same mode of encryption).