[Web4lib] Viral SSIDs in libraries?

[Rosenberger, Luke E]

Thanks -- I apologize if this is off-topic for this list.  I wasn't sure
where to seek out suggestions on this topic, but after further searching
I have found a discussion list called libwireless and will hopefully
post this request there once my subscription request is approved.

We have reviewed all library printer purchases and we don't have any HPs
with wi-fi capability -- but I suppose it's possible that someone might
have brought a personally-owned printer to work.   The other reason why
we believe the source is not a printer is that we are able to determine
the MAC addresses of the node broadcasting the SSID -- and at different
times, it actually appears to be coming from different MAC addresses.

Luke

-----Original Message-----
From: Bret Parker [mailto:Bret.Parker at ci.stockton.ca.us] 
Sent: Thursday, 30 October, 2008 09:41
To: Rosenberger, Luke E; Web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Viral SSIDs in libraries?

I know you say you have "no HP wireless printers anywhere near here" --
recently I heard a story of similar strong signals disrupting Wi-Fi.
After quite a bit of searching the network engineer found a very small
HP multifunction printer that was putting out quite a signal. He almost
didn't notice it, because he was looking for something BIG.

Sorry, I guess this is OFF-TOPIC.  

>>> "Rosenberger, Luke E" <rosenberger at uthscsa.edu> 10/30/2008 7:21 AM
>>>
Are any of you aware of libraries who have had problems with sudden and
dramatic growth of wireless traffic on "viral" ad-hoc wireless SSIDs, as
described in the following article?

http://www.wlanbook.com/free-public-wifi-ssid/ 

For several days now, the signal for our campus infrastructure wireless
network inside our library and lecture halls has been very unstable.
After analysis, campus networking is telling us that there are nodes
sending out bursts of heavy traffic on ad-hoc networks with SSIDs like
"hpsetup" (even though we have no wireless HP printers anywhere near
here). These bursts of traffic are creating so much "noise" that they
are intermittently knocking users off of the real infrastructure
network.  Tracking down the "source" of this traffic has been elusive --
which makes sense if we are experiencing the phenomenon described in the
article, because if that's true there probably are multiple, constantly
shifting sources of this traffic.

Both library and campus IT are puzzling over how to address this problem
-- even if we start educating users to switch their wireless configs to
"infrastructure-only" mode, it will probably not not solve the traffic
interference problem, just slow the "viral" spread of these ad-hoc
networks.  Is that the best we can hope for?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Luke Rosenberger * Director *
Library Technology & Historical Collections *
UT Health Science Center San Antonio *
MSC 7940, 7703 Floyd Curl Dr * San Antonio TX 78229-3900 *
+1 210.567.2486 * rosenberger at uthscsa.edu *
http://www.library.uthscsa.edu 



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