Wireshark-bugs: [Wireshark-bugs] [Bug 10296] Encoded WPA-PSK key exceeds 64 byte limit blocking

Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 13:00:40 +0000

changed bug 10296


What Removed Added
Status UNCONFIRMED CONFIRMED
Ever confirmed   1

Comment # 5 on bug 10296 from
I have a slightly different take on this but I think it may be the same root
cause so I will comment here rather than opening a new bug.

I have an unencrypted WPA password that is already the maximum 63 ASCII
characters long:

Av&OA*UwX:BIy\P8^tR2!5Wk.\ugKm8Z$m!3JXc`0Oo#rvy1QfWQ4'A3AW=QV+U

One example of encoding is below, every special character is encoded:

Av%26OA*UwX%3ABIy%5CP8%5EtR2%215Wk%2E%5CugKm8Z%24m%213JXc%600Oo%23rvy1QfWQ4%27A3AW%3DQV%2BU

Note that however this is percent-encoded, it will end up longer than 63
characters. 

Now the difference between me and rob is I NEVER get a successful decode.
Results from various test are:

Test #1
Key: Unencoded
Entered into: wireless toolbar
Accepted: YES
Decoded: NO
Key saved?: NO - error on restart 
Error loading table 'WEP and WPA Decryption Keys': 80211_keys:3: Invalid key
format

Test #2
Key: Unencoded
Entered into: protocol window
Accepted: NO - colon character in key SSID delimeter?

Test #3
Key: All special chars encoded
Entered into: wireless toolbar
Accepted: NO - too long?
WPA key size out of range!
Valid key size range is 8-63 ASCII characters (64-504 bits).

Test #4
Key: All special chars encoded
Entered into: protocol window
Accepted: NO - too long?
error updating record: Invalid key format

Test #5
Key: All special chars encoded, trimmed result to 63 chars
Entered into: wireless toolbar
Accepted: YES
Decoded: NO (for obvious reasons)

Test #6
Key: All special chars encoded, trimmed result to 63 chars
Entered into: protocol window
Accepted: YES
Decoded: NO (for obvious reasons)

So first of all one has to conclude that the key field in both windows is only
63 encoded characters, not 63 unencoded characters.

Second of all, this would prevent anyone with a long key and special characters
from decoding.

(by the way I also tried converting both forms to a PSK using the wireshark
online tool but this did decoded either - so perhaps some other issue there to
report with processing special characters)


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