Jim March wrote:
> Folks,
>
> This is both geek and election related.
>
> I need to know if anybody has encountered a WiFi router that
> automatically creates an SSID consisting of "myqwest" followed with no
> spaces by four numbers - seems to be standard "base 10" vs. hex or
> whatever. I need to know if the numeric portion of the SSID was
> auto-generated, and if so if the SSID changes on each boot - for
> example, a single device will be "myqwest4529" and then later
> automagically change to "myqwest2450" or whatever.
I haven't seen, and would be very surprised to see a device's SSID
change on its own from one day to the next.
> OR, would those last four digits be locked to a given WiFi router?
>
> Put another way: if I see an SSID of "myqwest1234" one day and
> "myqwest4321" the next, is it likely, plausible or possible that it's
> the same device both days? What is the significance of those last four
> digits? Does a human put them in there? Are they locked into that pattern?
A human could change the number, or the entire SSID for that matter. The
SSID is a trivial configuration parameter. So it's not likely, somewhat
plausible, and certainly possible that the same device would have a
different SSID on different days.
It's very hard to tell w/out inspecting the specific device. Wifi
routers are reportedly popular targets these days for pown-ing
(hackers). So it's quite possible that the configuration (of which SSID
is a part) was modified unbeknownst to anyone.
It's also possible that the stock firmware was replaced with some other
router software such as dd-wrt or openwrt, depending on the mfr/model of
the device. Any sort of customized software may have been loaded in that
case. I would start with checking the firmware.
I don't suppose anyone checked the serial numbers. :(
> Importance is...extreme. Cannot go into details yet. Affects the most
> recent election in Maricopa County.
>
> Jim
>
--
-Eric 'shubes'
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