SSID Hiding and Broadcasting

When I hide SSID, a PC WiFi connection status shows "connected" and "not connected" about 2-5 seconds apart. So the connection is very choppy. It can connect, but not continuously. However, when SSID broadcast is enabled, that same PC connection status is steady ("connected").

Why is that?

Reply to
Ron
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On Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:31:36 -0800, Ron wrote in :

Don't hide the SSID. It provides no benefit (since the SSID isn't really hidden), and it frequently causes problems (e.g., making your neighbor more likely to accidentally jump on "your" channel).

Reply to
John Navas

Thanks. I know that already. My question was "why was the connection choppy?" when SSID is hidden. Just curious.

Reply to
Ron

Ron hath wroth:

That's going to be rather difficult to answer since you only supplied the symptoms. How about some details like the wireless access point maker, model, and hardware mutation. Perhaps the client you're using to test it, including the wireless card, operating system, and especially the wireless client driver or manager being used (Windoze Wireless Zero Config or the vendors wireless manager). Some clue as to how you have it setup (open, WEP, WPA, RADIUS, etc).

Extra credit for mentioning how your doing the testing, something about the range and signal strength, and whether you've tried it with more than one wireless router and/or client computer.

I agree with John Navas. Don't hide the SSID. It offers few security benifits and causes too many complications. Your only real security is in the encryption, which should be WPA or WPA2.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 00:14:40 -0800, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

Even more credit for the *exact* error messages and symptoms, rather than paraphrasing.

With a *strong* passphrase!

Reply to
John Navas

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