ad-hoc SSID broadcasting

Do the clients in ad-hoc networks ever broadcast the SSID of the
network like the access point does in an infrastructure network? I
ask because I am trying to configure an ad-hoc network to be
reasonably secure against casual hackers and I figure that the best
way to keep it secure is to have noone know about it in the first
place.

"Turning off" the SSID does not really turn it off, it just broadcast
NULL instead of the real SSID, so you're still visible. APs must sen
BEACON frames on set intervals, and beacon frames must contain the SSI
(or its NULL version).

As far as ad-hoc setups... While you are trying to connect to a WLAN
your client is broadcasting its SSID until it is able to connect

--
Philipvia http://forums.speedguide.ne

Daveman750 wrote:

> Do the clients in ad-hoc networks ever broadcast the SSID of the
> network like the access point does in an infrastructure network? I
> ask because I am trying to configure an ad-hoc network to be
> reasonably secure against casual hackers and I figure that the best
> way to keep it secure is to have noone know about it in the first
> place.


yes you should enter the same name in both of them
personally I have spend month trying to get it work

it never did. (ad hoc is under developed)

buy an AP and it will work in a minute.

On 13 Nov 2004 21:42:49 -0800, (E-Mail Removed) (Daveman750) wrote:

>Do the clients in ad-hoc networks ever broadcast the SSID of the
>network like the access point does in an infrastructure network?

Ad hoc clients do not broadcast their SSID. However, they do respond
to network probes (id requests) from other clients and applications.
For example, Netstumbler will easily detect an ad hoc network using
probe requests.

>I ask because I am trying to configure an ad-hoc network to be
>reasonably secure against casual hackers and I figure that the best
>way to keep it secure is to have noone know about it in the first
>place.

This is commonly called "security by obscurity" which is generally
considered to be a marginal solution. For example, I often sniff with
a spectrum analyzer, which will detect non-802.11 sources of 2.4Ghz
RF.

If you need entertainment value, enter non-ASCII characters for the
SSID. For example, Cisco uses a "\x" in front of the two digit hex
value of the character. I was using an SSID of
\x08\x08\x08\x08\x08\x08
which is an SSID of 6ea backspace characters. Works fine with some
clients and AP's that support Unicode. Blows up with XP SP2, most
access points, Netstumbler, and Kismet. I've also used tabs, spaces,
weird symbols, NUL's, and break chars, which cause various monitoring
and management programs to hiccup. One would think that a program
that can handles non-ASCII WEP and WPA keys, could easily handle a
non-ASCII SSID, but apparently not. Such drivel will not stop a
determined hacker (like me), but it will give the "casual" war a
challenge.



--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558