Comments on: WiFi behavior question.

Question: WiFi behavior question.

nivekraz — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:53:37 -0800

We have a wireless LAN with rogue detection. The rougue detection picks up some laptops as rogue access points. It looks like the laptops are looking for the last access point connection they had. We see standard SSIDs like "linksys" and "Free Public WiFi". Why would the laptops be broadcasting the SSID of the previous access point it was connected to?

By: Captain_Science

Captain_Science — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:58:22 -0800

Its a windows XP bug/feature. They talk about it some here.

By: arnold

arnold — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:01:15 -0800

These are Ad-hoc access points. Disregard them.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:51:27 -0800

David Pogue says (after finding the article Capt._Science linked to): "Turns out it's neither a conspiracy nor a hoax: just a really, really stupid feature of Windows."

By: eafarris

eafarris — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:15:28 -0800

Steve and Leo covered this in Episode 82 of the Security Now! podcast. Pogue and Kirth are right: it's a dumb feature of Windows, as it's constantly looking for access points it's been to before.