Wifi network names

[Douglas C. Neidermeyer]

Imagine that, trying to protect the intellectual property rights of the lawful copyright holders and the companies that have millions of dollars invested and at risk. Crazy indeed!

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I think that some "sniffing" programs may be able to tell that my WiFi network exists, but if the SSID is unknown, that's another hurdle for somebody to deal with if s/he wants to try to break into my network or simply freeload on my Internet connection.

What issues does an invisible (or SSID unknown) network cause for other wireless users?

Perce

[Tomsic]

I saw the same thing, "FBI survellance van", painted on a white van parked along the street. The lettering was professionally done on all sides including reverse lettering on the hood. Cute.

Tomsic

[Tomsic]

One reason is that if your Wi-Fi is provided by U-Verse from AT&T, one of the router types that they use will reset to broadcasting the SSID after a power failure. So, it's a nuisance to change it to a no-broadcast setting.

Tomsic

[Tomsic]

Seems like WPA plus a strong password would handle just about anything except perhaps a hacker army. The installer who set up my router recently also told me to use passwords with a space or two in them which apparently makes them much harder to figure out.

Tomsic

[krw]

In addition to the keys, you also have to have the MAC from one of my computers to access the network. The encryption keys are the real strength, though. Security by obscurity, isn't.

[krw]

+1

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I have WPA2 encryption in addition to not broadcasting the SSID. I'm not relying on obscurity alone.

However, I will research further the issue about which I have just read

-- that if I have my laptop set to connect even if the SSID is not being broadcast it will keep sending that SSID when I am out of range of my network.

Perce

[CRNG]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:04:28 -0500, The Daring Dufas wrote in Re Re: Wifi network names:

snip

Thanks very much for the very detailed and informative reply.

[Atila Iskander]

I use lines of poetry, including capitals, accents and punctuation You need to know the poet, poem and language to figure it out.

Easy to memorize and very hard to break.

[krw]

Your obscurity isn't doing a damned thing except, perhaps, to make you feel good.

Rather silly. If I have ten locations set in my laptop, do I really want it sending all of them continuously? Very silly.

[The Daring Dufas]

I use Fractured Fairytales like "Mary had a little lamb who's fleece was black as coal and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb would shout, HEY YO!" ^_^

TDD

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I have only one permanent WiFi connection set on my laptop, but I can see that if one had a bunch of them it wouldn't be so good.

Here is the piece I had read -- at

Perce

[The Daring Dufas]

Of course it's wrong to steal copyrighted material but the business model hasn't changed from the record store days of yore for some of the media outfits. The company will have a set price for an album and ONE song is popular and a hit with listeners but the album that contains the one desirable song is filled out with garbage that no one wants. The music producers who understand the facts will sell the single on a site like iTunes for a reasonable price. The real villains in the theft of intellectual property can't usually be found so The RIAA goes after some family with a little kid who downloaded a few songs and didn't know any better. Demands of thousands of dollars per song or movie is quite silly and pouncing on someone who has little or no money is downright dumb. I agree with going after those who pirate the material and sell it to others but nuking a kid who downloaded a few songs is shear stupidity to me. I don't pirate material off The Internet and advise folks and their children against it because they can easily wind up with malware on their computer. O_o

TDD

[Atila Iskander]

I have an old router that is connected to a (very) old laptop It's sole purpose is to act as a honeypot for war-drivers. Regularly snag a script-kiddie trying to get on...

[George]

Your SSID is sent unencrypted in each frame regardless of whether you set the A/P to broadcast it. As I mentioned those ideas are in all of the "expert tips" from people paid by the word not for the value of what they write.

Wireless clients still see the signal and just get confused. As I said it is pure nonsense not to broadcast the SSID.

[George]

The only way you can "hide" your wireless network is to set it to disabled or not plug it in. Not broadcasting the SSID is pointless.

[gfretwell]

A real password looks like lightning struck your keyboard. Random characters, upper and lower case, numbers and special symbols that make no sense, no matter how creative you are looking at it. Mine is on a label on the bottom of my router. You would need access to the house, know where the router was and know to look on the bottom. By then. getting into my network would be very low on my list of concerns. I don't have anything sensitive on the network anyway.

[gregz]

There are a bunch of adaptors that look similar to the link. They come with a program from chipset to view all signals, strengths, names, etc. This extends the usual range by a bunch. They can clip to the top of laptop screen. For USB, which still uses the laptop interface circuit also, gor g operation.

Typically the laptop wifi antenna is in top left or right of screen.

Greg

[gregz]

Not sure if this has detachable antenna. Mine does. It's easy to build the cardboard antenna reflector, easy to find on the net, or use other gain antennas.

Greg