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any idea why my portables "see" the mumblemumble AP, when it's 500 mile

Every so often, when I check a location for available 802.11 access points, I'll see (made up name) "east-coast-coffee" in the list.

However, the east coast coffee shop is 500 miles away.

When I have the laptop "refresh", it'll still show up. (As do a half dozen "real" APs down the block).

And it's not restricted to just that one SSID. THere are a bunch of other names I'll see around.

This happens with both a windows XP laptop, as well as a Mac OS X unit.

I haven't had both with me at the same time to see if they're showing identical findings, but they do both have this general issue.

As best as I can recall I've never been able to actually get a usable connection to these APs (except at their original and real location). But I might be misremembering.

It's rare, but does repeat peridocially.

Any ideas as to why/how/why?

Thanks muchly.

Reply to
danny burstein
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Could it be related to the phenimenon described here?

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Reply to
Mike S.

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Interesting. I've seen hpsetup often.

I wonder if these XP systems out there not running service pack three had some sort of authentication issue, i.e. they couldn't get the service pack from MS?

Reply to
miso

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Don't think my specific issue is related to the "zombie network". The SSIDs I was asking about are singular enough that the chances of seeing an infected local computer with that ID are pretty slim.

But it does explain a whole bunch of "linksys" and "hpsetup" and other popular, ubiquitous, ones where I try hooking up and get nowhere.

Thanks

Reply to
danny burstein

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The "linksys" you see are probably real access points.

If you set up windows to automatically connect to a certain WAP, it will probe that WAP. Smart phones do the same thing. This is a bit of a security breech since the probes are visible to sniffer programs. I did a post on this regarding my own smart phone leaving a history of all the two star hotels I've stayed at, plus revelations of my coffee addiction.

I'm not saying this is the problem you are having, since I assume you have removed all references to these WAPs you have accessed in the past.

Reply to
miso

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