Re: Wireless printing security

James Taylor wrote:
JohnB <john.brennand@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


zoara wrote:

If I'm interested in wireless printing, would the Group Mind recommend
that I look into a) buying a wireless adapter for my current printer or
b) buying a new printer with wireless built in?

I looked into this a month or so ago having decided to go the new printer route - just got sick and tired of the Epsom clogging up and the
cost of cartridges - and wanted a photocopier function. My mate had just got a Brother and raved about it just as they brought out the DCP-340CW - wi-fi version. Didn't want the printer near the Airport.

I snapped one up for £99.99 at Staples.

Put it in the back room out of the way and it connected to my Airport
network instantly. Software loaded fine and easily on 3 Macs and 2 peecees. All 5 print flawlessly wires free.


Sorry to pick up ***-ends but I haven't been able to read news with my
usual frequency.

Can anyone tell me what types of encryption these sort of wi-fi printers
support? I use WPA2 (a.k.a. AES) encryption on my network with a
randomly generated 256-bit key and I wouldn't want to have to use
something as insecure as WEP just to be able to print.

What is the procedure for entering the long garbled passwords (usually
63 hex characters) into the printer, especially when there's no
keyboard?

James

According to the set-up guide - the Brother supports WEP & WPA-PSK(TKIP) - WPA-PSK(AES) is NOT supported

I use WEP with the 10 digit password - good enough for me. It is inputted using buttons to scroll through an alphanumeric dictionary that appears on the display and the the "set" key. Does take a bit of time to get to the digit you want - but you only do it the once.

The WPA-PSK(TKIP) encryption uses 7-63 characters - according the set-up guide.

--
JohnB



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