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I was wondering if anybody knew what the maximum string length of a browser's SSID is or where I could go to look for that sort of information. (From a spec of some sort)

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According to the documentation of the standard, the length of an SSID should be a maximum of 32 characters (32 octets, normally ASCII letters and digits, though the standard itself doesn't exclude values).

Some access point/router firmware versions use null-terminated strings and accept only 31 characters.

Here is the paragraph defining from the IEEE standard document :

IEEE PDF excerpt

Download link: PDF. Telecommunications and information exchange between systems — Local and metropolitan area networks — Specific requirementsPart 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications)*

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This page says 32 characters.

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An SSID for a wireless network has a maximum length of 32 characters

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it is 32 characters so if your 64 bit WEP key is 32 characters long you can use it also as your SSID. it is not safe to have both the SSID and the WEP KEY the same.

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    It's not safe to use WEP, period. The IEEE has deprecated its use and a google search for "wep crack" turns up a bajillion tools that make breaking into a WEP network trivial.
    – Gerald Combs
    Jul 29, 2009 at 20:52
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    and 64-bits is 8 characters, not 32 :)
    – warren
    Oct 15, 2009 at 8:21
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Changing the length of SSID is irrelevant to the security of the wifi network. It can be sniffed from air easily, kismet will show it to you regardless if you're 'hiding' SSID or not.

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  • changing the length won't enhance security, but knowing you can call it something other than "linksys" or "default" to "thisismyrouterkeepoffmylawnkids" is kinda handy
    – warren
    Oct 15, 2009 at 8:23
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    The question was about length, and length is irrelevant. The fact that it's not a default, especially in WPA where SSID is used as a salt, it needs to be as random as possible, so in that sense, changing it to something non-default is a good thing.
    – Marcin
    Jul 30, 2013 at 13:47

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