General wireless security question

[zba78]

With regards to a wireless network it’s clear that WPA offers a more secure method of encryption then WEP.

But I was wondering that if you were using WEP and you connected to a secure site (for example paypal or an internet banking site) then would the 128-bit ssl connection be secure enough so that ‘onlookers’ would not be able to read the packets sent from my laptop to my wireless router?

i.e. what I’m asking (in a nutshell) is would the presence of the 128-bit ssl encryption make the flaws of WEP irrelevant?

[AlexK]

the way I see it is that if i use a sniffer on my neighbour's wireless network (WEP) I can decrypt what he is sending. But with ssl, I will have to break that on top of sniffing his wireless packets.

Yes, using ssl in theory should make up for wep flaws, but it is my personal preference to just use wpa all the time.

Yes, I am one of those paranoid people when it comes to security

[zba78]

Thanks for the info. I couldn't get WPA to work on vector linux with the ipw2200 drivers. I've now moved to suse so I'll give it a try with that and see how it goes.

[zba78]

Got it working. Must have been a problem with vector but in SUSE WPA worked fine.

[loft306]

i dont realy worrie abiut it at all there are very few ppl around me if any that useing nix's .....and thus can see my boxen at all and as alexk stated with ssh it is encrypted anyways....

[zba78]

You're correct. But I'm just too paranoid