Question: What is the difference between enabling and disabling SSID broadcast?

SSID (Service Set IDentifier) is used as the name for wireless network, and is part of the wireless network packet.

Enabling SSID broadcast means the wireless router will broadcast the SSID all the time, so that it’s easier for the computer’s wireless software to detect and join the network.

If you disable SSID broadcast on the router, the computer’s wireless software will have difficulties to detect the wireless network, therefore you need to specify SSID manually in order to join the network. However you can still detect the SSID by using network sniffing tool, such as Kismet.

So what I want to say is disabling SSID broadcast is not good enough to secure wireless network, check out here on how to secure wireless network.