recovering wi-fi password?

[Craig234]

UPDATE: Thanks but found a solution with google. Original post below.

If I forget the password for my Wi-Fi, how can it be obtained?

(Trying to hook up a Kindle, Wi-Fi is Netgear router, Windows 7 PC)

Edit: I found a way by right-clicking the network connection, it has an option for 'show characters' that's supposed to show the password.

But it's blank. Could I have not used a password? The Kindle won't connect with a blank password.

Another option involved getting an ip address from 'ipconfig' default gateway - but there was no ip address, just a couple colons.

 

[ggadrian]

Why don't you reset your router to factory settings and start from there? It will be the easier solution.

 

[ch33zw1z]

It's really as simple as plugging directly into the router with a wire, and looking at your settings.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's really as simple as plugging directly into the router with a wire, and looking at your settings.

On some routers (Netgear WNR2000v1, I'm looking at you), that field is effectively write-only, because it's obscured, and no way to read it back.

 

[ch33zw1z]

On some routers (Netgear WNR2000v1, I'm looking at you), that field is effectively write-only, because it's obscured, and no way to read it back.

lol, good to know. What are these manufacturers thinking?

 

[seepy83]

If you've got administrator credentials for a Windows PC that is connected to the wireless network, Cain & Abel can dump the plaintext passwords for you.

 

[dealguru]

UPDATE: Thanks but found a solution with google. Original post below.

If I forget the password for my Wi-Fi, how can it be obtained?

(Trying to hook up a Kindle, Wi-Fi is Netgear router, Windows 7 PC)

Edit: I found a way by right-clicking the network connection, it has an option for 'show characters' that's supposed to show the password.

But it's blank. Could I have not used a password? The Kindle won't connect with a blank password.

Another option involved getting an ip address from 'ipconfig' default gateway - but there was no ip address, just a couple colons.

If you have a wireless computer connected wirelessly to the router, the password should appear under the wireless network properties. Also, you will know whether your wireless network is secured or not when you double click on the wireless symbol on you laptop and mouse over on your wireless network, it will say whether the network is secured or not.

 

[alkemyst]

It's really as simple as plugging directly into the router with a wire, and looking at your settings.

Just to add since the OP solved this,

Almost with any network device you can get into it if you have physical access and directly connected.

However; you cannot always get the passwords back. This is the case more often than not...you can simply reset those passwords.

This will have a big impact on a large network as all the clients will have to re-authenticate.

This is why even in small networks, documentation is critical. SSIDs/Authentication tend to be set it and forget it and that ends up burning people all the time.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

KeePass is your friend... Since I started using it, problems like this are non-existent, provided we're talking about anything I've set up. I did have to try to recover the password for my friend's router at his work, and ended up just factory resetting it and giving him a new one.

 

[Craig234]

Well, here's the interesting tidbit in what happened.

I found a web article saying to click the network icon in the lower right near the clock, and from there go to a screen where you click 'show characters'.

I did that, and the field was just blank.

Funny thing, another web article said to go through control panel and it got to what looked like the same window - but this time, clicking show characters showed it.

I have no idea why what looked like the same box didn't work going through the icon, and did through the control panel.

I don't have any pc's hooked up over the network, just a ps3, so not sure how else I'd have found it, short of resetting the router, which seems like a headache.

The PS3 showed the password as having a different number of chars, and masked it.