Re: 'Closed' mode


From: Peter K. Lee (pkl_at_duke.edu)
Date: 2002-04-13 00:59:07 UTC



I understand your point. :) I don't really know how XP or other OS's autoscan the network to discover what access points are available, it might simply be via listening for beacon frames, but I have a feeling that they actually find things out by sending an active probe request for Access Points... Something that NetStumbler exploits, by continuously sending out active probes to all the channels, and keeping track of which access points respond... in which case I'm not really sure how 'closed' mode can deal with this in keeping your test network from being 'stumbled upon'...

On that note, I haven't been able to figure out the purpose of 'beacon frames'... Other than a silly way to tie up processor usage on network cards...

But then again, someone please correct me on whatever I put up there... It might just as well be that XP only looks at beacon frames when showing the available networks, in which case putting the test network on 'closed' mode will do the job perfectly well...

-Peter

On Fri, 2002-04-12 at 20:18, Michael Codanti wrote:
> The reason I was asking is I would like to be able to set the 'closed' mode
> on my test network, so people wouldn't stumble upon it by accident when
> there is a other on in range... I don't expect security I just don't want
> XP throughing it in their face.
>
> Michael
>
> > I'm just speaking on top of my head, so whatever I put up there might be
> > completely bogus... but its simply based on my experience with 802.11b
> > so far, and I'm not entirely sure 'closed' mode is really anything but a
> > marketing gimmick to make it seem more secure when it really isn't...
> >
> > -Peter
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 2002-04-12 at 11:29, Michael Codanti wrote:
> > > Lucent and Cisco APs support a 'closed' mode in which they don't
> broadcast
> > > the SSID, and then they don't show up in scans, etc... Does the HostAP
> > > driver support this? If so how do I turn it on?
> > >
> > > Michael
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>



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