hidden essid experiment

[Bill Moss <bmoss clemson edu>]

My campus is covered by a set of Cisco AP's that use the same hidden 
essid, cuairnet, and the same 128 bit WEP key. Using the cvs20041208 
Fedora development release of NetworkManager and the 0.17 version of 
ipw2200, I did the following experiment. In a location with two usable 
AP point signals, one strong and one midrange, I clicked on 'Other 
Wireless Networks' and filled in the essid cuairnet and the WEP key. In 
about 15 seconds, I was connected. I looked in gconf and found the 
network entry 'cuairnet' containing the MAC address of the weaker AP 
along with the essid and key. I was surprised that NetworkManager had 
selected the weaker AP but the fact that the ipw2200 driver does not yet 
report 'scan quality' may explain this. I edited the addresses lists 
adding the MAC of the stronger AP. I rebooted hoping the hidden network 
cuairnet would be automatically offered as a choice but it was not. 
Again, I had to click on 'Other Wireless Networks' and filled in the 
essid cuairnet and the WEP key. This time NetworkManager selected the 
stronger AP. The fact that I had to re-enter the cuairnet information 
may again be due to the fact that the ipw2200 driver does not yet report 
'scan quality' may explain this. If this conjecture is wrong, let me know.

I previously reported on the failure of the above setup to obtain an ip 
address on my home network where I use an SMC Barricade 7004 AWBR 
router/switch/AP. No such failure occurred on the campus network. The 
dhcp negotiation was written out in painful detail in the syslog and 
made for interesting reading. On the home network, there is nothing in 
the syslog. The SMC fails to respond. The tcpdumps have been previously 
posted.

--
Bill Moss
Professor, Mathematical Sciences
Clemson University