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Wireless Hacks

Posted by timothy on Tue Oct 21, 2003 12:15 PM
from the wifi-with-aplomb dept.
Books Media Wireless Networking The Internet Book Reviews Hardware
hanksdc writes "With the proliferation of wireless networking over the past year, it has become easier and easier for even the most budget-minded geeks to afford wireless gear for their homes, offices, and neighborhoods. Rob Flickenger's latest, Wireless Hacks expands upon his previous book on the topic, Building Wireless Community Networks , and takes its reader by the hand on a fast-paced run through a large assortment of hacks related to wireless networking." Read on for the rest of hanksdc's review.

From the back cover we find that the book is targeted towards the intermediate to advanced wireless user, and I found that definitely to be the case. Some of the hacks use a lot of technical jargon, and assume a fair amount of background knowledge from the reader. You should probably already know how to get a wireless link up and running to really benefit from the book. But don't let that be a deterrent if you're a newbie. It's still a fun read, and provides a lot of ideas for the inquisitive and creative mind.

The book is very readable, (all the Hacks series books I have read would, like their venerable ancestor, UNIX Power Tools , make for great bathroom books). Each hack is self-contained, and can be read in just a few minutes. You can read the book straight through, or browse around, find what interests you and go from there. Most hacks have references to other hacks in the book, so reading it can be like browsing a web page sometimes. Many hacks also have references to further sources of information on the topic covered.

There are hacks here for UNIX/Linux platforms mainly, but all you Ti/Al-Powerbook zealots will find plenty to lick your lips over as well, with several of the hacks devoted to wireless networking with OS X. There are even some for the Windows users as well. Many of the hacks (since they deal with hardware) could be utilized on any platform. Well, ok, you might have a bit of a hurdle to get your Pirouette cantenna hooked up to your vintage Apple ][c, but this book makes a good breeding-ground of ideas for those so inclined.

The book is divided into several chapters, each devoted to a particular topic. Each chapter contains a number of hacks related to that topic:

  • Chapter 1, "The Standards," covers the alphabet soup of current wireless protocols, with a brief introduction to each.
  • Chapter 2, "Bluetooth and Mobile Data," covers Bluetooth technology (need to use your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone to act as a modem for your laptop in a pinch? If only those phones weren't so pricey...*sigh*)
  • Chapter 3, "Network Monitoring," is all about finding out what's going on on the local network, including various ways to sniff traffic, broadcast network services, perform network discovery, and analyze traffic.
  • Chapter 4, "Hardware Hacks," gets down to the metal, discussing topics ranging from boosting signal strength to building your own access point from micro form-factor hardware to cabling and antenna guides.
  • Chapter 5, "Do-it-Yourself Antennas," describes various ways to build your own antennas all the way from Pringles cans to milled aluminum wave guides (Don't forget to use ventilation when soldering ;-).
  • Chapter 6, "Long distance Links," offers tips on setting up, well, long distance wireless links.
  • Chapter 7, "Wireless Security," dispels the vendor-propagated myths of WEP 'security,' and gives practical advice on how you can avoid the guy next door from sniffing your private traffic (not that you'd have anything to hide, of course...).
The book's website has a full table of contents, listing each hack, if you're interested.

Throughout the book there is a lot of information repeated from Building Wireless Community Networks, as well as a few hacks copied over from Linux Server Hacks [Slashdot review here], but all together it makes a very useful collection, and a nice addition to O'Reilly's Hacks series.

So what's my take on it? If you're doing just about anything with an 802.11x network, you'll likely find something fun or useful here. If you're brand new to wireless networking, you may want to come up to speed with something a bit more tutorial-oriented. Perhaps one drawback to the book is its recipe-style format. There's not a lot of background information offered with each hack, but rather a lot "do this, then this, and you get this." If you're not used to hacking and experimenting with things, you might find yourself a bit lost. It certainly isn't a college textbook, which can be both good and bad, depending on what you're looking for.

Overall, if you're the forward-thinking, range-extending, hardware-tinkering, soldering-iron wielding, average slashdot reader, you'll probably find it a fun read with lots of good ideas to offer.

You can purchase Wireless Hacks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

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  • Hacker's challenge 2 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sir Haxalot (693401) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:18PM (#7272415)
    is also a useful book [slashdot.org] on the subject, covering 'a few scenarios involving wireless access that each manage to point out a different facet of wireless security.'

  • www. no cat . net (Score:4, Informative)

    by fluor2 (242824) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:18PM (#7272426)
    We use nocat ( www.nocat.net ) at work. Its free, its open source, and it is highly customizeable.

  • Speaking of wireless (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:21PM (#7272460)
    I live pretty close to a Starbucks with wireless. Has anyone had any experience using their service from home? Can you do it? Is it worth it? Do they leave wireless on when the store is closed?
    • Driving past there at night running Kismet, the SSID is still broadcast. I'd have to guess yes.
    • They are TMobile Hotspots [t-mobile.com]. Not free [t-mobile.com].
    • I live about 500 feet from one - no access from home, but I haven't done the antenna thing.

      Could someone with more better smarts than I explain me this:

      I have a monthly hotspot subscription, with my cell phone. I was wondering how hotspot works... I can resolve network names (ping cnn.com will come back allright) before I log in but the web browser always points me to the t-mobile login screen. Also, I don't see anyone else on the network once I log in.

      I ran ethereal during a login session, and didn't
      • You probably are resolving name lookups, but I'll bet what you are seeing one of two things:

        1. They set a wildcard in their DNS server, so every query returns the same IP address, probably of their authentication server.

        or

        2. They have an HTTP proxy server that intercepts everybody who is not authorized for access, and then the DNS could still function normally.

        The problem with number two is then in theory, if DNS queries still work right, then SSH, POP3, IMAP, etc probably works fine, and that would def
          • I don't know how Starbucks does it in particular, but I've seen several different setups. Often times the authentication is done at the DHCP server, where a temporary IP on a network with no net access is assigned to unauthenticated clients, and an IP on the net-connected network is assigned once you have authenticated and restarted your network connection. On campus here @ WSU, your wifi will pick up a good IP but the only route to the internet is through a VPN tunnel you have to authenticate with, and loa
    • They charge by the hour, unless you steal it :P (see AirSnarf [shmoo.com] )

      The DefCon presentation describes their authentication setup, IIRC.

  • What about the rest of us... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GillBates0 (664202) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:23PM (#7272477) Homepage Journal
    Overall, if you're the forward-thinking, range-extending, hardware-tinkering, soldering-iron wielding, average slashdot reader, you'll probably find it a fun read with lots of good ideas to offer.

    ...woman-fearing, microsoft hating, RIAA loathing, SCO bashing, tinfoil hat-wearing, troll-posting, penguin-loving, overlord-welcoming, beowulf-clustering, and russia-sovieting slashdot readers? Will we find it a good read too?

    • it has become easier and easier for even the most budget-minded geeks to afford wireless gear for their homes, offices, and neighborhoods.


      Dunno about everything else, but that tinfoil hat and a can of pringles will help with your office and neighborhood wireless hacking, as this article [nycwireless.net] explains.

  • I'll just toss in my $.02

    Working for a company where security is of the utmost concern, I don't see 802.11 taking over anytime soon. While the speeds and reliability are getting better, it's still just too easy to find a way in. Not broadcasting the link help, but even that's not foolproof for people who know what their doing.

    I don't know if you'll ever see this sort of technology in main stream business, but for home Lan's it sure is cool. Personally however, I'm just not a big fan of even thi

    • Re:Wireless still = Dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lanswitch (705539) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:31PM (#7272574)
      In the Netherlands there is an experiment going on with WIFI, www.wirelessleiden.nl

      Right now I can use the 'net all around the center of the city I live in, Leiden (of Pilgrims fame). In a few months a commercial ISP will provide internet access through the wifi-network. Quite how they want to make profit, I don't know. Still, it's cool to walk with my Ipaq (opie linux) in my hand and see all the networks around me. Most people just think I'm playing with some pda or gameboy.

    • Are talking about sharing your bandwidth, or sharing the cost? Because Speakeasy has a setup where you can share your cable connection with a neighbor, and they will handle the billing.

      Too bad I can only get Roadrunner. My neighbor has Roadrunner also, but they are home at different times of the day and really just use it as a faster AOL so they don't have to wait so long for pages to load. For a 50% reduction in costs, I'd probably see barely a 5% reduction in service.
      • Last I heard they would let you do it, but you had to handle the billing. It's still nice, most places don't want you to do that at all.

        Have they changed their service or somesuch?

        -Zipwow
    • While you are right to be concerned about the security aspects of 802.11 I think that the situation will improve before too long.

      The current problem is that wireless cards work by broadcasting the signal out over a sphere, typically having a radius of around about 100m. This is great in that neither the transmitter or the receiver need to have much spatial directionality, however it meansd that anybody within that radius can tap into your traffic and start breaking any encryption you hyave going.

      Now
      • Last year at the WERN conference in Geneva I saw IBM demonstrate something along these lines which instead used muon and tau neutrinos to transmit data to their research facility in Kuala Lumpur. Because of the weak interaction with baryonic particles, they could use a line of sight path completely below the surface of the earth, so very secure. Although the helical magnets they used in the accelerator were relatively small, they said this would have to be a solution only for fixed wireless because of pow
    • unless you encrypt your traffic end to end.

      SSH tunnels are so useful.
      • We know WEP is lax security too. Enough to stop the casual wardriver, but supplemental encryption is needed for really valuable data. It's a pain in the ass, but if you can't do anything else, rekeying after about every 1GB of data will reduce the risk.

  • Why Wireless? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eberlin (570874) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:24PM (#7272492) Homepage
    I'm questioning the purpose of wireless technology. I understand that it's more convenient than a wired network but is there anything else?

    Unless you've got an office full of notebooks, the best solution still seems to be a mixture of both wireless and wired...with wireless locked down as much as possible (even to the point of having to VPN through to the internal network).

    It's fairly scary that one of the main reasons people go wireless if for convenience (and supposed simplicity for home users) -- and it's these same home users that will probably not take the time and effort to learn how to secure their network.

    • Re:Why Wireless? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tumbleweed (3706)
      I'm renting a room in a house - we can't run cabling since it's not our space, thus, wireless, no choice.

      Is this that hard of a concept? Sometimes cabled just isn't an option.
      • [i} thus, wireless, no choice.[/i][P] Actually, you still have choices. There are, for example, devices that let you send your ethernet across the AC power connection. It would let you share an ethernet connection in other rooms of the house, but not past the transformer that feeds the building. There may be security issues here too, but it would generally be much more secure than WiFi. That's not to say I advocate it (although I've seen it used well in one business where I would have had a fit if they had

    • Re:Why Wireless? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Matey-O (518004) *
      #include(You_Are_New_Here_arent_You.h)

      If the bandwidth is adequate, you have ZERO cost in moving a wireless office from point A to point B.

      Wireless has been a GODSEND in/under/around Hotel conferences (the SANS security conference was REALLY cool: Track 1 was how to hack, Track 3 was how to catch the hackers...the wireless packets came rapidly and were Very Interesting.)

      Any traveler with a reasonably secure setup has an office just about anywhere he opens the lid on his laptop.

      Why wireless? If you spent
    • Imagine a warehouse. The guy walking through the racks taking inventory can be online, hooked into the inventory db. The same db that the order takers are hooked into.

      Or an oftused conference room. Don't have to have a rat's nest of wires growing out of the floor to each seat.

      You're right. A mix of wire/wireless is best. Use the wireless only when you need to. But that still leaves open the possibility of holes in the system.

    • Re:Why Wireless? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can take your laptop to the toilet with you and surf the web. I thought everyone knew this.
    • I am wireless at home because
      1. We have computers for many people.
      2. I do not want wire all over the place becuase it does look ugly. And punching holes in the walls is more trouble than its worth.

    • Why wires? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluGill (862)

      I question wired networks. They make sense for servers and backbones. For most users though, wires to the desktop do not make sense. Copper isn't free, and you have to pay someone to run the wires to each desktop. Hope you run enough wires too, or you will pay him to go back latter when one guy comes up with a good reason to run 3 computers in his cube. (I've known several good reasons to do this) Of course you could run more wire to each cube just in case, but then your costs have gone up a lot more.

      • Run wireless

        Isn't that an oxymoron?

      • Why would you need to run more wires to the cube for 3 machines? I've four, and they all hang nicely off of a Netgear hub.

        Maybe if all 3 were on different networks.....

        I think wireless is more for laptops than anything else, as you have to have a power line for the desktops anyway, and they don't move much.
          • True, true. I should have said switch. I'm using a netgear Switch, and it seems to work well.

            I just like the looks of little wires, they're so cute...
    • I'm questioning the purpose of wireless technolog

      Too many apps to mention. You need to think this through.

      it's these same home users that will probably not take the time and effort to learn how to secure their network.

      Sometimes the paranoia around here is so thick you can smell it.

      Most of the people you are concerned about probably were hooked up direct to cable internet on a win98 box before they went wireless. Is it really that much worse to have an unsecured or poorly secured WLAN?
        • I generally agree with what you say, but I think the point I was trying (poorly) to make is that there are two separate issues here:

          1. Clueless users.
          2. Insecure technology.

          Put the two together and you have problems. The supply of clueless users is endless and growing. In a few years there will be BILLIONS of new internet users around the planet.

          Technology companies will continue to make the same tradeoffs they have been making-- if it's insecure it's easier to support.

          WLAN is just one more example of i
    • Here why I use wireless at home: my fiance lives one story up, 2 apartments over. We have HSI into her apartment then I can access it with my Airport card down in my apartment. I then secure it by only allowing my ethernet card on to the WiFi network via MAC address and a WEP password.

      Office - we have 8 employees using 10 macs with airport and share a Cable internet connection into the office. We just moved in last week and it was $90 for a router and it would have been about $800 to have someone come

  • The Linksys WRT54g basestation/firewall/router/toaster is a MIPS box with 16mb of ram and linux...

    This guy's got snort running on it:http://www.batbox.org/wrt54g.html (with a remote nfsmount for logs)

    and these guys have info on hackin 'em:
    http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/Lin ksysWr t54g

    (I'm lazy, look out for the spaces)

  • same price at amazon (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ref: Amazon has this book for the same price as bn [amazon.com]
    Spend $7.50 more to get free shipping.

  • Dispelling the Myth of Wireless Security (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Slashdolt (166321) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @12:38PM (#7272639)

    I read this [oreillynet.com] article awhile ago. Given that so many people are setting up wireless networks in their homes/apartments, it really makes me wonder how many of them are being hacked, and allowing their neighbors to get free Internet access.

    On the other hand, it could be a good defense if you actually wanted to give your neighbor free access. ;-)

    --
    Slash

    • When I first got my wireless card, I intended solely to use it at school where they had wireless networks, but when I plugged into my laptop at home (a condo), I picked up a signal. Someone across the street in a neighbouring condo has a wireless lan. I was curious as to how security minded people were when installing a WLAN. I noticed both no admin password on the compaq router and some open windows shares had no passwords. More importantly, I found out I had downloaded more surfing the net wirelessly
    • Hacked? I left mine open on purpose. I'm not using most of the bandwidth anyway, so why keep it locked up?

      -Mars
      • Funny that you mention that. I am literally typing this inside a Subway eating dinner while sharing a broadband DSL connection that is being piped to me by an eye care (actually called ICare) outlet two doors down!

        Ijust turned on my laptop to write a letter and my console indicated a connection. How nice for them to offer this to anyone.

    • Re:Dispelling the Myth of Wireless Security (Score:4, Interesting)

      by peter_gzowski (465076) on Tuesday October 21 2003, @02:06PM (#7273729) Homepage
      A guy I do computer work for actually accidentally hacked his neighbours wireless network. His wireless network that I set up for him (with a WEP key, for what it's worth...) went down because somebody reset the box, but his laptop upstairs just picked up another network and started using it. He wouldn't have even noticed except the signal strength was poor, so his interent was slow.
      • Call me pedantic, but that's two incorrect uses of the word "hacked". The normal operation of a wireless equipped laptop connecting to a base station can hardly be described as bypassing security. And the term for bypassing security is "cracked", not "hacked". Hacking is building things, cracking is breaking them. :-)
        • This is not an interesting problem, it's a configuration mistake on your part. Tell your laptop to pick a specific AP, not "best signal".

          Then set up a second laptop as a warez server using your neighbor's unsecured network as free bandwidth.

      • WEP is not encrypting your connection. While the key work involves something that might be considered 'encryption', once the key is set, it does not encrypt ANY traffic on the lan.

        Saying 'isn't wep encrypted' is a misnomer.

        WEP
        Wired Equivalent Privacy (WLAN)
  • Here's something I've wondered about - is it possible to connect a wire from the antenna port on my base station to the inside phone wiring of my house, and will the inside wiring act as an antenna of any sort?

    I've also wondered about connecting it up to the old-school UHF antenna that's hanging inside my attic (if not for the HOA, it would have been on my roof), but I don't know if that will do any good either...
  • Without messing around physically with the innards of my access point, is there a simple way to increase its range?
  • here [waterville...etwork.org]

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