Asus EEEPC Networking problem

We seem to have a steady stream of Asus eeePC lately most with Linux Xandros as a base operating system, the problem this time revolved around the failure of the eeePC to communicate via an encrypted network. In the main most wireless network routers are capable of between two or three levels of network encryption across the wireless access point. These range from :

• None (No network encryption)
• WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
• WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

Most of the latest Wireless Networking Routers usually support all three of the above protocols. "None" as its name implies uses no encryption between access point and workstation, this could leave your data vulnerable from interception by third parties. "WEP" Wired Equivalent Privacy is only a little better than above. "WAP" Wireless Application Protocol uses a pass phrase as a basis for the encryption in use, all data transfered between access point and workstation is encrypted using this pass phrase. For a workstation or laptop to access this network and data it must also have the pass phrase it was encrypted in to decrypt the data from the network into a human readable form. The Asus PC presented to SoSLUG was able to communicate with the network and the internet when used in conjunction with the "None" or no encryption and was determined as being network capable ie the hardware installed was not at fault. The owner of this unit wished to use an encrypted protocol method to communicate between the access point and the workstation, in this case the eeePC. Having determined the unit functioned using the wireless connection we thought that this would be a simple process to connect to an encrypted network using the wireless. This assumption proved to be incorrect as although an access node could be verified connection via "WEP" or "WAP" continued to allude us. after many hours of frustration one of our members, that would be me, decided to try a different tact and update the packages for this unit via Add / Remove this had to be accomplished using a fixed wired connection rather than wireless for obvious reasons, a "Wireless Update" was found. This we a please to report rectified the problem associated with encrypted networks.