Information Embedding in IEEE 802.11 Beacon Frame

Abstract

According to IEEE 802.11 protocol, beacon frames are periodically transmitted by the Access Point (AP) and carry mostly network specific information. All the wireless stations (or wireless clients) with in the "vicinity" of transmission range of AP receive corresponding beacon and use the information embedded in it for various purposes. The arrangement of information in beacon is standardized by 802.11, thus facilitating communication between different devices manufactured by different vendors. Also, the IEEE 802.11-2007 is the base protocol and its several amendments have been published by IEEE till date. In this paper we show that with out breaching the standard, where additional non-standard information can be embedded on the transmitted fields of 802.11 beacon frame. This facilitates the non-standard, vendor/network specific communication of information from AP to wireless clients without Association.