[Solved]why does my wireless card always find unexisted net?

double_crane · Last edited by double_crane on Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:01 pm; edited 1 time in total

last year when I use my old laptop , which installed Gentoo 32bit with wireless CARD intel wifi 5100 agn ,I didn't meet this problem.

several months ago ,I bought a new laptop ,and installed Gentoo 64bit, the wireless card is realtek 8723ae.
and when I iwconfig wlan0 scan , i can always find APs that are with SSID=" ", and no crypt. not just one or two,but a lot of this kind of APs .
in fact ,these AP don't exist .

and of course in windows , I won't find these APs, I only see APs that are not-blank names.

I thought it was because 0f the realtek 8723ae fault. the drivers provided for the card from realtek is nice in windows , but rubbish in linux . in linux the connection always broke up.

until today , I use 5100agn card from my old laptop to my new laptop ,instead of 8723ae , I was surprised that the problem still exist~~~

iwlist scan ,I can still find a lot of APs without SSID,,, which do not exist in fact !! and in wicd ,these APs are marked by name <hidden>

help~~~~ I don't want to see these APs ,no more , how do they appear,so strange~~~!!!

thegeezer · n00b Joined: 11 Jul 2010 Posts: 33

when you setup wireless network on any access point you have the option to hide (not broadcast) the SSID.
because it is not shown in windows, there is a belief that this adds a layer of security.
android and iphone also do not show these by default.

however, you can connect to a hidden ssid if you know the ssid.

wicd is just showing you everything it can see.

if you don't want to see the hidden networks why are you scanning for them ? i.e. let wicd reconnect automagically?

Jaglover · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 10:57 pm Post subject:

Hiding SSID's does not add any security indeed, the only undetectable wireless network is the one that is turned off. Not seeing networks because of hidden SSID's is actually disadvantage. One might think there is no other AP on a particular channel while it's not true. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ou/the-six-dumbest-ways-to-secure-a-wireless-lan/43
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double_crane · Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:00 pm Post subject:

now I think these hidden APs do exist
though the amount of hidden AP is too much

but I don't want to see them in wicd-client?

is there any solution?