[Cialug] Slightly OT: Interesting wireless networking article

Jeffrey C. Ollie jeff at ocjtech.us
Mon Mar 26 23:05:10 CDT 2007


On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 22:41 -0500, Tim Wilson wrote:
> The main reason I heard for hiding the SSID is to keep the casual
> visitor off your network.  It won't keep hackers/crackers off your
> network, but it'll keep the next door neighbor's kid from downloading
> music through your connection.  So based on what you say and what I've
> heard, it doesn't hurt to turn off SSID broadcasting, just don't use
> it as your primary security.  Would you concur?

No, even though you aren't using SSID hiding as your "primary" security,
it lulls you into thinking that it's giving you a "little bit more"
security.  If you are trying to keep people off of your wireless network
you should be using WPA (preferably WPA2) for authentication and
encryption.  And even then you should be using encrypted protocols like
SSH and HTTPS for anything that might possibly carry sensitive
information around.

Jeff

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