Broadcasting SSID

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 19:26:55 -0000, Bob spoketh

Have you done the wireless configuration as a "preferred network", or are you just letting Windows figuring everything out?

Lars M. Hansen

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 21:08:13 -0000, Bob spoketh

The "automatic" reference seem to imply that your computer will connect to this network automatically if it is present. This may indicate that you have configured it manually, but I cannot say for sure. It shows up with the "automatic" reference on at least one of my laptops as well, and I know that I configured my preferred network settings manually.

If you are not broadcasting the SSID, it might be a good idea to go through the effort to manually create an entry in the preferred network section, as well as making sure that the "automatically connect to non-preferred networks" are _UN_checked. You'll find that option by clicking on the Advanced button (not tab) on the wireless tab of the network properties page (whew).

Lars M. Hansen

With windows xp, you shoud broadcast the ssid, microsoft has several articles on this. Besides even if you dont broadcst the SSID in the beacon it is clearly seen in a probe request/response. So anybody with a protocol analyzer could see it during a probe. SSID broadcasting is not a secutity method and actually can be helpful to neighboring wireless lans, so they know what channel you are on.

The ID is shown in the list of preferred networks, as "ID (Automatic)", where ID is the network name.

I don't remember manually adding it to this list, so I guess Windows did that automatically?

Windows XP almost demands that you broadcast your SSID. I, too, have XP SP-2 installed, however, I am able to connect to my LAN whether my SSID is broadcasting or not. Still, there are no REAL advantages to not broadcasting your SSID. As long as you use some form of encryption with a LONG, nonsense passphrase then you should be okay.

Example: C7&0(SXh)hI;u--5Y{0gr*jrB^sr9($ZW0)B56n4PZB:P3;2__hyt#IZs^ VwG3

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 18:14:01 -0600, Airhead spoketh

I am well aware of the fact that not broadcasting the SSID doesn't do much for you in the security department. It keeps grandma from seeing your network, but that's about it.

As for having to broadcast it with Windows XP, well, I'm not broadcasting mine, and my wireless network has a very high uptime. Sometimes authentication takes a while (radius), but other than that, my non-ssid-broadcast WLAN is available to me all the time.

Lars M. Hansen