Re: Wireless Ethereal

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Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2004 17:36:26 -0500
To: Edward Smith <esmith@cerebix.com>, security-basics@securityfocus.com

> Has anyone used Ethereal to capture wireless traffic, and if so, can you
> point me to any resources documenting wireless Ethereal usage?
> I've downloaded the 10.2 Windows distribution and the documentation, and
> am planning to read, install, and experiment while I await replies.

I've never done it under windows, not my platform... but I've done it
using the wlan-ng drivers under linux, putting the card into monitor
mode using one of the kismet (http://www.kismetwireless.net) utilities
(kismet_monitor I think) and then selecting the appropriate interface
from inside ethereal. I've only used Prism2 based cards for the last
couple years, but it should be much the same for others as well.

All in all it's worked *marvelously*. Of course, if you're sniffing WEP,
you'll get encrypted packets unless you have the key. But seeing as 80%
of the 1000 or so 802.11 hits I've found driving around town have no WEP
whatsoever, it shouldn't be much of a problem... and even then airsnort
(http://airsnort.shmoo.com) will help you with some of the WEP ones ;)

I imagine there is a windows equivalent seeing as netstumbler
(http://www.netstumbler.com) has to put the card into promiscuous mode
(better to use the NDIS 5 drivers if I remember correctly). Whether the
windows flavour of ethereal can run in capture mode with netstumbler
running at the same time I'm not sure but just give 'er and see what
happens. If not, perhaps there are other appropriate low level utils for
manipulating the card settings.

I would really recommend that you setup a small linux partition somehow,
the wireless/wardriving utils are really top notch.
http://prism2.unixguru.raleigh.nc.us is a page that some awesome dude(s)
put together that drop in the right versions of the drivers that are
patched to give you full control and monitor mode over the card. I used
RedHat 7.3 and some older RPMs as I built up the laptop a while ago, but
looking at the page it appears that there are now RedHat 9 RPMs. After
dropping 'em in it's a piece of cake to compile and install kismet,
ethereal, airsnort, etc.

I use to use a DWL-650 (the old ones, not the new ones; the new ones use
a different chipset) but now I use a Senao NL-2511CD Plus EXT; rather
nice as it has 200mW output and -95 dbm sensitivity (thought thats at 1
Mbps; it goes to -87 dbm for 11 Mbps) http://www.netgate.com/NL2511.html

Regards,
Byron Sonne

-- 
For Good, return Good. For Evil, return Justice.
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