Wireless Question

[Eric the Grey]

I'm setting up a new wireless router and have been considering turning off the SSID broadcast. My new place has almost a dozen different WiFi points within range of it, and they are all secure, strangely enough. I'd like to hide mine from the masses.

Question is, how do you connect your computer to it? The only way I've ever connected was to choose the available access point and go from there. If there is no SSID being broadcast, how do you choose it?


Eric the Grey

[Der Cute]

Eric,

Don't turn off the SSID.
Your pc will need to hear it.

But you can create a more secure network - by following the tips in the link I'm posting.

http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Security.html

Cutenoob

[Eric the Grey]

Eric,

Don't turn off the SSID.
Your pc will need to hear it.

But you can create a more secure network - by following the tips in the link I'm posting.

http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Security.html

Cutenoob

Yea, I've already set up most of that, although I cannot use anything above WEP due to hardware constraints on one of the laptops (old card), and I didn't know about the channel 11 thing, it's good to know.

I had been told that you should turn off the SSID broadcast, but I guess not. Thanks. I'd always wondered about that.

I'm not too worried about people breaking into my wireless. It's kept secure and I tend to change the key every few months, just for giggles. It drives my nephew crazy whenever he comes over and tries to connect. He's always expecting it to be the same...


Eric the Grey

[Blade_Raver]

As an added amount of security, I turned DHCP off on the router and set the network scheme to be something different than 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x.

Sure, it might be a small hassle to set your wireless network cards with a static IP address, however the people looking for free internet are going to have a hell of a time guessing your IP address scheme and giving themselves a valid IP address to access the network/internet.

[Broomjockey]

It's easy enough to connect to your network if you turn off the SSID, if you're using Vista, there's an option under the list of available networks that says "set up connection," and one of the options says "if you're trying to connect to a hidden wi-fi network." Unfortunately, I don't know where (if) it is on XP.

[Eric the Grey]

It's easy enough to connect to your network if you turn off the SSID, if you're using Vista, there's an option under the list of available networks that says "set up connection," and one of the options says "if you're trying to connect to a hidden wi-fi network." Unfortunately, I don't know where (if) it is on XP.

Interestingly enough, Win7 also has that option. I found it accidentally while playing around with it on my old laptop here at work. Once you select the network, you just have to put in the SSID of it.

Of course, you have to know the SSID first...


Eric the Grey

[Sandman]

Eric the Grey is right, it shows up as "Unnamed Network" (or something like that.. the student portal at the college I go to is like that) and you have to enter the SSID in correctly.