WLAN connection from my Droid

[mlamberg]

Good wireless best practice is to disable broadcasting of the SSID on your home wireless network. When I do my DROID will only connect when I create the profile .. Next time I come in range it never looks for or finds my home network.. I currently use WPA2, broadcast disabled, mac access lists, which works fine with all my other wireless devices. Is this behavior by design or something in the works to be corrected? Is there a short term workaround? My Droid is on firmware 2.0.1, Kernal 2.6.29

Thanks

Mike

 

[skilaufen]

I don't have an exact answer for you, but I had the same problem with wpa2 and a hidden name. Shortly after that (about a week later) my brightness widget stopped working and it would not let me change the setting. I say all of this because it was thought to be an app I pulled down (though I never figured out which one).

The fix was a hard reset and a reloading of my apps. It has worked fine ever since and it finds my router agtomatically. Don't know if you want to try that but I finally had to because of the brightness issue. Best of luck and maybe someone can be of more help.

 

[Redflea]

Hiding an SSID isn't going to provide you any additional security against hackers who want to try to get on your network...if they want to try to get on your network there are ways to sniff it out and try to attach, and hiding your SSID won't slow them down. Same w/mac filtering...

Strong passwords and WPA security are what will do the most to keep people out of your network.

I'd stop hiding your SSID if it's causing you any issues...I stopped hiding mine a few years ago.

 

[aaron19953]

Hiding SSID and mac filtering is basically useless.. SSID just don't make it your name or address or something common. the best procedure is to make a good key, ie upper, lower, number, special character. To get an idea of your encryption level check this out

Hackosis | Brute Force Calculator

Mine would be 151,680,241,682.82 days, keep in mind, wifi would be muuuch longer than that

enjoy !!

 

[mlamberg]

I don't have an exact answer for you, but I had the same problem with wpa2 and a hidden name. Shortly after that (about a week later) my brightness widget stopped working and it would not let me change the setting. I say all of this because it was thought to be an app I pulled down (though I never figured out which one).

The fix was a hard reset and a reloading of my apps. It has worked fine ever since and it finds my router agtomatically. Don't know if you want to try that but I finally had to because of the brightness issue. Best of luck and maybe someone can be of more help.

So when you performed the hard reset, other than reloading your user apps, were the stock apps and verizon network connection still present?

 

[mlamberg]

Regarding hidding the SSID, I recognize that if someone wanted to hack my wifi network, given enough time and patience (and possibly money) it will "always" be possible.. On the other hand hiding the SSID is a reasonable precaution along with mac filters (which yes I know, can be spoofed) but it will make it more difficult to hack.. Anyway I gather from your responses you solved my problem by enabling the SSID broadcast. Thank you, I do appreciate the responses..

BTW, I did not have this issue when my network was previously running WEP (yes, I'm embarrassed to admit it )

Mike

 

[RedMist]

Don't listen to people who tell you that having more security is pointless.

It will at least stop the script kiddies in your neighbourhood from attempting to hack your AP.

 

[aaron19953]

Don't listen to people who tell you that having more security is pointless.

It will at least stop the script kiddies in your neighbourhood from attempting to hack your AP.

I hate to tell you, but the script kiddies have ssid revealing software as well.. kinda like this one

Kismet

-=<> Aaron <>=-

 

[mlamberg]

So to close out this thread and keep it on topic, my issue was I was unable to connect to my non broadcasting WPA2 wireless network. Regardless what anyone says turning off the broadcasting of your WLAN is good security practice regardless of the tools the bad guys bring to the table. Its always going to be difficult to stay ahead of someone who wants to attack your network, but every little bit helps. Not broadcasting (or announcing yourself) your network will always help a little..

Now back on point.... Turns out that Skilaufen (first reply above) hit my problem on the head. One of my downloaded apps must have caused a problem with my Droid's ability to connect to a non broadcasting WPA2 WLAN. Like him a few days after I noticed this problem, my GPS stopped working as well.. I performed a full hard reset (clearing all user data and applicaitons) and now both capabilities are working perfecty...

Thanks everyone for responding to my issue..

 

[MicroNix]

I hate to tell you, but the script kiddies have ssid revealing software as well.. kinda like this one

Kismet

-=<> Aaron <>=-

Yes, but with tons of other people's SSID's sitting out there for the hacking, keeping yours concealed adds a "hack the easy, obvious ones". Your forget that script kiddies today are LAZY.

I have mine hidden and have no issues with my Droid continually recognizing it (with encryption) since November.

 

[skilaufen]

The only other advice I have is don't let your eight year-old play with your Droid without explaining about NOT downloading any and everything in the market that looks interesting. (At least they were all free, though shortly after my problems started)

 

[aaron19953]

Yes, but with tons of other people's SSID's sitting out there for the hacking, keeping yours concealed adds a "hack the easy, obvious ones". Your forget that script kiddies today are LAZY.

I have mine hidden and have no issues with my Droid continually recognizing it (with encryption) since November.

Yes, but also remember that if you hide your ssid, you will draw more attention. People only hide when they have something they don't want found. If it were me, i'd ignore the public ones.. In plain sight ya know ..

just my $0.02.. Keep in mind, my wifi has a 1watt booster, and a 42" antenna .. hehe