DI-524 and Cantenna

"RS" hath wroth:

Sounds like you want to do some exploring. The ideal device is the laptop, but those tend to NOT have external antenna connectors. You can install a PCMCIA card or USB wi-fi device in the laptop, and get an external antenna connector, but that might require some soldering or modification.

So, we move on to the desktops. If one of them has a PCI card wireless device, it should work. I'll spare you my opinion of the Cantenna, but it will work well enough for sniffing.

There are two common programs for sniffing. Netstumbler 0.4.0 runs on Windoze 2000 and XP and will detect access points that broadcast their SSID. It will also detect ad-hoc networks. It will NOT detect access points that do NOT broadcast their SSID, broadcast a blank SSID, or have some form of countermeasures installed to prevent detection. It will also not identify client computers. It's an active sniffer, which means it transmits a probe request, and waits for a response. Earlier versions of Netstumbler 0.3.30 runs just fine on W98SE and WinME.

The most common passive sniffer is Kismet which runs on Linux. Unlike Netstumbler, this is a passive sniffer which only listens. Unlike Netstumbler, it will pickup access points that do not broadcast their SSID and do not respond to probe requests. It will also pickup wireless clients.

It is not necessary to reformat your hard disk and install Linux to run Kismet. Instead, you download a "Live CD". You boot the CD in your computer, it hopefully finds your PCI wireless card, and you then run Kismet from whatever desktop is provided. The trick is to be sure that the driver for your PCI card or at least the chipset is included. I suggest:

Security Auditor:

sure to check the tested devices list. The CD also contains a large number of other wireless tools: notes on its use: you have an Intel wireless card (in your laptop) be very careful which version of Security Auditor you download: Kismet is also included on the general Knoppix distribution. has the advantage of having a few more wireless card drivers, but lacks all the security related tools.

There is no way you can use the DI-524 for sniffing.