When it comes to passwords, characters, lengths, and names for your WiFi, size does matter. It is true that for our applications, with the assistance of different programs we can create very long and complex passwords, but for our router it is different, hence the question we ask ourselves this time: What maximum length do these WiFi routers allow? Because no, here not everything goes.
Changing the WiFi name is basic
Changing the name and password of the default router is one of the basic and essential recommendations that are always given for security, but it is not the only one. There is another advice regarding the SSID, let’s say that name that is assigned to the router to distinguish it, which has been repeated like a mantra forever and is to have more or fewer characters.
Because, as you may have noticed, normally these types of WiFi networks have ‘ugly’ names, but by accessing your router’s configuration you can change it and put something more fun and original.
In those, there are many who give names to the networks for various purposes: to scare away thieves, make claims, complain about a neighbor, do business… Now then; What is the name that you cannot give your WiFi even if you want to?
Up to 32 alphanumeric characters
Namely; If we leave the name by default, this name is used when deriving the keys with which we will protect our wireless network, so it is convenient to basically change it so that it is more or less unique, different, in a way that makes the obtaining process more difficult. of the password.
As such, we are talking about the SSID, which is a sequence of 32 bytes included in all WiFi packets that are transmitted over the wireless network, in order to correctly identify them as part of the WiFi network to which we are connected.
According to the 802.11 standard, the SSID frame with respect to the name is between 0 and 32 bytes. Therefore, the minimum length of the SSID will be 1 and the maximum length of the SSID will be up to 32 alphanumeric characters . The standard doesn’t say which characters are supported, so in principle it can be any character, but you have to take that with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, and very important for us to know, is that, although the maximum length is 32 characters, no SSID can be configured as empty (0 characters), because an SSID with a length of 0 is reserved for special functions and cannot be changed. configure on our router.
All we can encrypt
It may also be useful to change the default IP address of the router. Normally it is usually 192.168.1.1, the first numbers that every user eager to hack your WiFi will type in their browser. Simply by changing the last number we can delay or push back less experienced hackers or that freeloading neighbor who wants to take advantage of your connection.
Ideally, we use a simple name to remember or to which we find some personal relationship but that does not refer to us directly or to our home. In those, we can be as creative as we want, even completely hide the SSID if the router allows it… but never put our name, nickname or physical address, email, etc.
At the same time, the characters that we can use are all. This means that we can put any type of character , such as lowercase letters ‘az’, uppercase letters ‘AZ’, numbers 0-9 and also symbols and we can even put spaces. In those, the 802.11 standard does not limit the allowed character set, so we can put any character. However, our WiFi router or AP may impose certain rules, namely not to use strange symbols such as double or single quotes, symbols and others.