Associating with a cloaked AP
 

I have set my wireless AP up so that it does not broadcast the network name.

With the appropriate name and WEP key, I have had no trouble associating to my AP when I am using windows. Using the same values, however, I am unable to do so in linux.

When the AP is uncloaked, I am able to associate using linux, so I can't help wondering why I'm having trouble when it is cloaked. I feel a bit stupid asking this, but what am I missing?

The card, driver, and OS are:
ralink rt2500 wireless card, rt2500 drivers, SUSE 9.3

I can post my iwconfig commands and results if necessary, though it seems to me I must be missing something fundamental, so that syntax seems a bit irrelevant.

You may not be missing anything. Some wireless cards seem to require the SSID broadcast to be on (and yes, this can vary between Linux and Windows). If it works with SSID broadcast on, I'd just turn it on and not worry about it. Security-wise, turning off SSID broadcast really doesn't do anthing.

*sigh*
I had suspected that, but hoped I was wrong.

Thanks for your input.

Have you tried forcing the access point association using iwconfig ap?
eg. iwconfig eth0 ap 00:60:1D:01:23:45

Yep, I have done this.

Actually, via iwlist:

>iwlist ra0 scan

I find the ap. Copy the ap MAC and paste it to:

>iwconfig ra0 ap 11:22:33:etc

when I then run iwconfig:

>iwconfig ra0

it does not indicate that I have associated with the ap. My defined SSID (defined on boot via config) is erased, however, so that it now shows SSID=""

when I again define the SSID, iwconfig continues to show that SSID=""

Furthermore. I have no such trouble when the AP is not cloaked. (I would provide more detail, but there are no cloaked AP's at my workplace, so nothing to garner output from.)

Thanks