Talk:Service set (802.11 network)

Cracking
The article says "it [the SSID] is however still readily available to crackers using the appropriate tools"

Some more dicussion how how a "cracker" would do this would be nice to have (i.e. what can you tell about a network if you don't know the SSID, and how do you connect to it? do you need to eavesdrop on other connections, or can you get in some other way?) --85.119.130.132 12:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, you could use a tool such as essid_jack. When you have the MAC address of an AP that your target is connected to (obtained by a packet sniffer), essid_jack to spoofs your MAC address with the one of the AP and sends a disassociate frame to your target (or targets, if the destination is set to broadcast) which causes them to send back to the AP (you) an associate frame, with, of course, the SSID. Or if you like doing it passively, simply capture packets until one of them has the SSID you need. Easy. SeriousWorm 13:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Reference for security weakness part
References for the "many security experts considering disabling SSID broadcast to be a security weakness" part would greatly benefit this article. Jody Burns 22:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe this is what you are looking for?: http://www.icsalabs.com/icsa/docs/html/communities/WLAN/wp_ssid_hiding.pdf -David Eliason
 * unfortunately the link is broken. I tried to find an alternative but was not successfull
 * You can always use one of the copies on the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.icsalabs.com/icsa/docs/html/communities/WLAN/wp_ssid_hiding.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.206.1.96 (talk) 00:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Service set identifier or service-set identifier
Wouldn't it be clearer to spell it with a hyphen: "service-set identifier"? Reason: it seems to be `an identifier set by the service`, i.e., by the network (its provider or the processes going on in the network). 20 March 2007

Allowable encodings
I've been looking for a reference for allowable encodings for an SSID. The wording "alphanumeric string" (vaguely) implies 7-bit ASCII only, but 8-bit SSIDs are certainly out there; I have found a bug report which mentions in passing that the encoding should be ISO-8859-1 but this seems rather anachronistic for a standard from 1999. Couldn't find anything in the 802.11 specs via http://ieee802.org/ either. era 15:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes. I've fixed the article. 128.197.11.28 17:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Not broadcasting the SSID
Regarding the following paragraph:


 * In fact, many security experts now consider turning off the SSID broadcast a security weakness. The access points may no longer broadcast the SSID, but every client that has that network set to automatically connect is now transmitting connection request packets with the network's SSID in an attempt to locate and connect to the network.

This paragraph, especially with the word now, gives the impression that the behavior of the system changes when the SSID is not broadcast. Is this correct? --Jwinius 12:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Another thing;

"Some people have erroneously attempted to improve security by turning off the broadcast of the SSID ... it should still be turned on ... It is the first layer of a layered security setup"

Obviously being written by different users, this section actually contradicts with itself. Hiding the bssid can be considered a slight improvement of security. A user who can't detect a hidden bssid probably wouldn't have the knowledge to crack a wireless network's password, whereas a user knowledgeable enough to crack the password would have no problem detecting the hidden bssid. so most of the time bssid hiding is irrelevant. Regarding the above (deleted) comment about bssid hiding being a security flaw, that's only funny :) Anyone having a simple program like kismet can detect all bssids around, one way or another wireless networks can be detected. What difference does it make? I think that section should be rewritten. 88.254.131.246 (talk) 08:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

ESSID versus SSID
What's the distinction between ESSID versus SSID? 24.26.128.185 (talk) 04:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * According to ESSID is SSID used in managed mode and BSSID is used in ad-hoc mode. MTM (talk) 18:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That can't be right. BSSID is the ID (MAC address) in managed mode too. See the article. Xerces8 (talk) 21:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

ESSID redirects here but isn't even mentioned in the article. Please, Wikipedia, stop doing that.--92.78.108.223 (talk) 20:39, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * ESSID doesn't exist in the standards and there doesn't seem to be an explanation of what it is supposed to be anywhere on the internet, except for that one link that's already been proven wrong (BSSID being what it called ESSID). I would AfD ESSID and scrub any mention of it as a typo, mistake, or vendor-specific extension unless new information comes along. Foxyshadis (talk) 01:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I bet it's some silly amalgamation of extended service set (ESS) and service set identifier (SSID). This ridiculous engineer jargon is killing me, too. Who knows what it means, probably mostly nothing. Little men enjoy spouting big (self made) words. Makes them feel warm and fuzzy, and employed. Palosirkka (talk) 16:37, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * ESSID = ESS, the word ESSID does not exist. Look here: http://www.ieee802.org/21/doctree/2004_Meeting_Docs/2004-07_meeting_docs/21-04-0105-00-0000-what_ess.ppt Mgutt (talk) 10:04, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Setting up a small network with SSID name
If I setup an access point with a Name "station1" and have two clients with the same name, does this mean that the two clients will only communicate with the access point "station1"?

Now If is create additional access points with the names "station2" and "station3", will they work independently of the access point "station1"? 174.27.233.50 (talk) 19:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)trol 9/7/14 1:39pm174.27.233.50 (talk) 19:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Service set identification (SSID)
I came to Wikipedia to understand what an SSID is. Will someone please rewrite this section, as it is completely incomprehensible. ~ P-123 (talk) 17:06, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Webopedia.com has a far better description of what an SSID is. ~ P-123 (talk) 17:13, 10 April 2015 (UTC)