wifi user has an asterisk as a name?

[zCypher]

Hey yall,

Anyone know anything about this? In the router GUI, I see my hardwired PC, my wireless android phone, and I also saw a third user, who's name was an asterisk. It had a MAC address also which was different from my two devices obviously. Thing is I only have these two devices. I live in an apartment building with many wifi connections around me, my network is using wpa2.

After changing the ssid and password, enabled mac filtering (I realize that may be of limited value), it did disappear. sadly i didn't think to save the MAC and see what manufacturer it is, but oh well.

There's a strong chance it's nothing, as a while back I gave my wifi to a friend that lives in the same building. I never did check to see what his device showed up as in the GUI. It is the first time I've seen this asterisk thing, so more curious than anything else as the asterisk has not re-appeared since. it's probably normal that some devices don't have a name, as the MAC is really all it needs, but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Also, while I'm here, you may as well throw any wi-fi security suggestions out there that I may not be aware of. i'm using a refurbished linksys/cisco loaded with dd-wrt, havent had any complaints with it in ~3 years.

 

[Cabletek]

Hey yall,

Anyone know anything about this? In the router GUI, I see my hardwired PC, my wireless android phone, and I also saw a third user, who's name was an asterisk. It had a MAC address also which was different from my two devices obviously. Thing is I only have these two devices. I live in an apartment building with many wifi connections around me, my network is using wpa2.

After changing the ssid and password, enabled mac filtering (I realize that may be of limited value), it did disappear. sadly i didn't think to save the MAC and see what manufacturer it is, but oh well.

There's a strong chance it's nothing, as a while back I gave my wifi to a friend that lives in the same building. I never did check to see what his device showed up as in the GUI. It is the first time I've seen this asterisk thing, so more curious than anything else as the asterisk has not re-appeared since. it's probably normal that some devices don't have a name, as the MAC is really all it needs, but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Also, while I'm here, you may as well throw any wi-fi security suggestions out there that I may not be aware of. i'm using a refurbished linksys/cisco loaded with dd-wrt, havent had any complaints with it in ~3 years.

If you put on WPA/WPA2 you have the best security you can you can try mac denial bu they can just spoof another mac pretty easily, the only other thing is have it not broadcast the SSID so that it does not show in simple scans. You will have to remember your name for it if you want to add new devices though and manually enter it in..

 

[Smoove910]

If you have DHCP, just set it up to assign only the amount of IP addresses that are in your network... If you have 3 pc's, have the range of the DHCP be 3 #'s.

 

[masteryoda34]

I have seen an asterisk in my dd-wrt interface for years now. Not sure what it is, but it seems to be somewhat normal.

 

[jumpncrash]

If you have DHCP, just set it up to assign only the amount of IP addresses that are in your network... If you have 3 pc's, have the range of the DHCP be 3 #'s.

only problem there is if somebody comes over and you give them your wifi password you have to also go change your DHCP range, kind of annoying.

And to the OP, as I said on MSN, it's normal, xbox and ps3 both have asterisks as names in my interface.