Re: Wireless router problem

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006, Steve Pearce wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 22:08:17 -0000, "kraftee"
> <kraftee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >Even if you don't have any other networks I have found that channel
> >changing can make a very big difference, a case of experiment & see..
>
> The fad of hiding the SSID just makes this harder, just because
> nothing is reported doesn't mean its not there.

I still don't understand these reports. If I suppress the SSID on my
wireless AP, the laptops *can* still see it - they just display a
blank field where its SSID should be, and when I try to connect to it,
I'm prompted for its name.

Last time I raised this, I was told that the AP wasn't really making
its presence known, and my laptops were somehow remembering its
details from a previous connection. But if I stealthily move the AP
to another channel, the laptops see it on the new channel - so I find
that theory hard to swallow.

However, obsessing on this detail may not be the key point...

Fundamentally, there's no genuine security gain in trying to hide the
SSID, because any real hacker who's monitoring actual transmission
between a user and an AP will be able to see the SSID, sooner or
later, in management packets between the two. Or so I'm reliably
told. Thus, hiding the SSID can give a false sense of security,
whereas it would be better to concentrate on getting wifi security
working at a more fundamental level (e.g, on a home network, probably
at least WPA-PSK).

But it may put up a *small* additional hurdle to any casual scanners.
I'm not sure how many fully-equipped hackers to expect at any given
time within wireless range of my home AP...?

cheers
.

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