URGENT question on Qwest WiFi routers...

[R P Herrold]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010, Jim March wrote:

> 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

I have encountered such, but not specifically in the 'myqwest' 
vendor namespace; Many '2-wire' routers chose to set a SSID, 
based on a hash of the MAC address plus a 'salt', and perhaps 
an initial setup 'password' based on the UUID (serial number) 
of the unit

A hash is used to prevent a predictable sequence attack inot a 
search space bigger than afforded by say WEP; I have not 
looked as to the later wireless WPA / WPA2 -- as I recall 
there was a design flaw in WPA necessitating the '2' variant

This is, I believe, a common and reasonable approach to permit 
a customer to have limited config rights, and if it becomes 
necessary to reconfig from scratch, to push a 'restore to 
factory' recessed button with a paperclip, and clean up a 
mess

-- Russ herrold