SSID Spec

Anything non-wireless related

SSID Spec

Postby lullabud » Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:49 pm

I don't know that this is necessarily off-topic, but I couldn't create threads anywhere that seemed appropriate...

I'm can't seem to find conclusive information about the allowed characters for an SSID, or the allowed length thereof. From what I can tell, you're allowed to use any character, be it ascii or upper-ascii or whatever. The limit seems to be somewhere around 32 characters... Does anybody have a link to a definitive answer?


Oh, and hi to everybody who I haven't talked to in the last few years.
nas ne dogonyat
User avatar
lullabud
Mini Stumbler
 
Posts: 261
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2002 5:22 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Postby wrzwaldo » Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:59 pm

The limit is 32. If I recall the spec says alphanumeric.
wrzwaldo
 
Posts: 8995
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:43 pm

Postby lullabud » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:07 pm

Yeah, I think 32 is the answer. That's actually part of the problem though. I don't know that it's 32. I know that alphanumeric is definitely not right though. Looking through a list of stumbled AP's shows other characters like spaces, underscores, hiphens, etc.. So, really what would be perfect is a link to a definitive answer. The Wi-Fi Alliance home page is pretty crappy and I can't find the spec there... go figure.
nas ne dogonyat
User avatar
lullabud
Mini Stumbler
 
Posts: 261
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2002 5:22 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Postby King_Ice_Flash » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:12 pm

lullabud wrote:Yeah, I think 32 is the answer. That's actually part of the problem though. I don't know that it's 32. I know that alphanumeric is definitely not right though. Looking through a list of stumbled AP's shows other characters like spaces, underscores, hiphens, etc.. So, really what would be perfect is a link to a definitive answer. The Wi-Fi Alliance home page is pretty crappy and I can't find the spec there... go figure.

I thought the answer to the life, universe, and everything was 42?
"Yeah," said a voice from under the table, "you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel."
User avatar
King_Ice_Flash
 
Posts: 2658
Joined: Tue May 20, 2003 11:00 am
Location: WI

Postby renderman » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:18 pm

It's 32 characters. It's buried in the 802.11b spec somewhere, I'm not going digging for you

Any ASCII charachter is legal, though anything really wierd tends not to be liked by alot of clients (who limit themselves to alphanumeric), and alot of AP's web interfaces only allow alphanumeric.

I've got a paper coming out soon about this stuff. When I get off my ass and write it, I've found some fun you can have with SSID's
User avatar
renderman
 
Posts: 1867
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2002 5:29 pm
Location: Anywhere but Utah

Postby fregniacciaro » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:28 pm

King_Ice_Flash wrote:I thought the answer to the life, universe, and everything was 42?


I checked it very thoroughly and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.
When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today, I'm gonna read it to you.

Rompipalle della Chiesa del WiFi
SHAMELESS PLUG!

"Are you trying to irritate my colon ? Because if you are, I'll shit all over you in such a way you'll end up in a sanatorium, never to be heard from again."
--Dutch
User avatar
fregniacciaro
 
Posts: 1868
Joined: Mon Jun 03, 2002 4:30 pm
Location: Sq'rat on the loose!! Shoot 'im! (not you G8t)

Postby beakmyn » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:28 pm

renderman wrote:It's 32 characters. It's buried in the 802.11b spec somewhere, I'm not going digging for you

Any ASCII charachter is legal, though anything really wierd tends not to be liked by alot of clients (who limit themselves to alphanumeric), and alot of AP's web interfaces only allow alphanumeric.

I've got a paper coming out soon about this stuff. When I get off my ass and write it, I've found some fun you can have with SSID's


Like using FakeAP to stream newsfeeds? and the tinyurl SSID?
beakmyn
 
Posts: 4858
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 1:53 pm

Postby lullabud » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:39 pm

OMG, 42... How could I be so STUPID? Man, I'm sorry for wasting everybody's time... *hides his face in shame*


After digging around I found the answer to my question at the IEEE 802 Standards site.

"The length of the SSID information field is between 0 and 32 octets." -- 802.11 spec, Ratified 1999, reaffirmed June 2003.
nas ne dogonyat
User avatar
lullabud
Mini Stumbler
 
Posts: 261
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2002 5:22 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Postby lullabud » Wed Aug 17, 2005 4:09 pm

This is kind of interesting too... Kistmet limits SSID's to the range of ascii characters between ' ' and '~'. This would seem to indicate that SSID's only use those characters, but that only uses up about 1/3 of the possibilities that an octet offers. This is where I get curious about the interesting stuff that renderman was refering to. Hmmmmm......
nas ne dogonyat
User avatar
lullabud
Mini Stumbler
 
Posts: 261
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2002 5:22 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Postby Dutch » Wed Aug 17, 2005 4:26 pm

lullabud wrote:This is kind of interesting too... Kistmet limits SSID's to the range of ascii characters between ' ' and '~'. This would seem to indicate that SSID's only use those characters, but that only uses up about 1/3 of the possibilities that an octet offers. This is where I get curious about the interesting stuff that renderman was refering to. Hmmmmm......

Kismet mungles the SSID before displaying it, in order to avoid Bad Things<tm>.
That doesn't mean you can't use other characters in a SSID. I.E. the Danish alphabet has special characters, which is located above ASCII 128. These characters are valid in the SSID. Kismet just don't display them.

Dutch
All your answers are belong to Google. SEARCH DAMMIT!
Warning. Warning.
Low C8H10N4O2 level detected. Operator halted....
User avatar
Dutch
 
Posts: 6698
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: City of Mermaids, Denmark

Postby wrzwaldo » Wed Aug 17, 2005 4:39 pm

lullabud wrote:Yeah, I think 32 is the answer. That's actually part of the problem though. I don't know that it's 32. I know that alphanumeric is definitely not right though. Looking through a list of stumbled AP's shows other characters like spaces, underscores, hiphens, etc.. So, really what would be perfect is a link to a definitive answer. The Wi-Fi Alliance home page is pretty crappy and I can't find the spec there... go figure.


Alphanumeric includes special characters and punctuation...

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=alphanumeric

And I just told you it was 32. :rolleyes:
wrzwaldo
 
Posts: 8995
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:43 pm

Postby lullabud » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:05 pm

wrzwaldo wrote:Alphanumeric includes special characters and punctuation...

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=alphanumeric

And I just told you it was 32. :rolleyes:


Wow, you're totally right. I would've figured that Alpha-Numeric would mean "Alphabetical characters and numerical characters", however, according to the Wikipedia definition of alphanumeric, it really does include punctuation. Kick ass, I'm switching my home SSID to use the interrobang as soon as I get home! Oh, and to confuse hackers who are trying to manually type my SSID, since they don't need no stinking point and click snazzy Graphical UI, I'm going to use the ellipsis to make them think it's really a dot dot dot. I'll be invincible!
nas ne dogonyat
User avatar
lullabud
Mini Stumbler
 
Posts: 261
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2002 5:22 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Postby wrzwaldo » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:14 pm

lullabud wrote:Wow, you're totally right. I would've figured that Alpha-Numeric would mean "Alphabetical characters and numerical characters", however, according to the Wikipedia definition of alphanumeric, it really does include punctuation. Kick ass, I'm switching my home SSID to use the interrobang as soon as I get home! Oh, and to confuse hackers who are trying to manually type my SSID, since they don't need no stinking point and click snazzy Graphical UI, I'm going to use the ellipsis to make them think it's really a dot dot dot. I'll be invincible!


Of course a good dose of common sense could be usefull. Wikipedia is as useless as tits on a boar hog! I guess if you wanted "a link to a definitive answer." you should have visited the ieee web site.
wrzwaldo
 
Posts: 8995
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:43 pm

Postby G8tK33per » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:18 pm

lullabud wrote:I don't know that this is necessarily off-topic, but I couldn't create threads anywhere that seemed appropriate...

I'm can't seem to find conclusive information about the allowed characters for an SSID, or the allowed length thereof. From what I can tell, you're allowed to use any character, be it ascii or upper-ascii or whatever. The limit seems to be somewhere around 32 characters... Does anybody have a link to a definitive answer?


Oh, and hi to everybody who I haven't talked to in the last few years.

Those damned FAQ's...
"Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you." ~ Benjamin Franklin

Sons of Confederate Veterans
User avatar
G8tK33per
 
Posts: 6078
Joined: Fri May 09, 2003 4:00 am
Location: Goomba's Booty Boardwalk

Postby theprez98 » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:33 pm

G8tK33per wrote:Those damned FAQ's...


What is a FAQ? Can you add that to the wireless dictionary? ;)
[font="Courier New"]"\x74\x68\x65\x70\x72\x65\x7a\x39\x38";[/font]
User avatar
theprez98
 
Posts: 3638
Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 8:23 pm
Location: Maryland

Next

Return to Off-Topic

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

cron