Hot spot detection

If you're running XP, you can find unsecured networks that you can connect to. Turn your card on and click on the computer icon that comes up when the wireless network starts looking for signal. Right click into "view available network connections" Hit refresh list on your right column. The other option to find networks is to use "netstumbler' netstumbler.com

Hi

This has probable been asked before, but I'm new to this groups so sorry!

I have a laptop with build in wifi, I am looking for some software that detects hot spots and tried to connect to them and if successful tells me. I'm sure there must be some software out that but just can't find it can anybody point me in the right direction?

Brian

Is there any simple utils that will tell you what IPs are in use on a wireless LAN ?

You can run a capture on Etherreal and see a trace of the IPs being used, and Ethereal does that without the PC being set (either by DHCP or manually) to the correct local IP network, but is there any simpler tools ?

But anything simpler out there that giver a real time indication of IP activity ?

Stuart.

Sorry I should have been a little clearer on this. I know I can get XP to tell me what's about, but I want something that runs in the background and if it can connect to a WiFi then tells me.

Brian

Running arp -a will give you a list of IP's that your machine has seen: Interface: 192.168.1.10 on Interface 0x1000003 Internet Address Physical Address Type 192.168.1.1 00-0c-41-71-36-30 dynamic 192.168.1.50 00-80-c8-ac-c0-60 dynamic 192.168.1.101 00-0d-88-7e-7c-07 dynamic

You might also try probing the network for IP's using nMap.

C:\NMap>nmap -T5 -sP 192.168.1.0/24 Starting nmap 3.55 ( ) at 2005-03-17 12:20 Pacific Standard Time Host 192.168.1.1 appears to be up. Host 192.168.1.50 appears to be up. Host MICRON (192.168.1.100) appears to be up. Host DELLBERT (192.168.1.101) appears to be up. Host NET44GATE (192.168.1.102) appears to be up. Host 192.168.1.255 seems to be a subnet broadcast address (returned 1 extra pings). Nmap run completed -- 256 IP addresses (5 hosts up) scanned in 19.719 seconds

You've already covered sniffing for IP's in use with Ethereal. This has the advantage of not requiring an ICMP ping response to demonstrate an address in use. Workstations with sofware firewalls (XP SP2) that have ping response disabled, will not be found by active probing.

Sure.. However they aren't free... and don't cost thousands of dollars, so it's probably no good :)

I use Cirond's Winc

but it may break your budget... Costs thirty bucks after a thirty day evaluation... As you asked earlier, it not only works with many devices netstumbler wont work with, but also allows you to start a browser when it finds hotspots (way cool!)

Brian,

You may wish to investigate the Wi-Fi Zone Finder:

as well as the Wi-Fi Certified Product Listing:

Sincerely,

Brad Reese BradReese.Com® Cisco Resource Center United Kingdom: 44-20-70784294 U.S. Toll Free: 877-549-2680 International: 828-277-7272 Fax: 775-254-3558 Website:

Thanks for all your helps guys.

Right here is what I'm unto.....

My set-up I have a main system and a laptop with wireless and LAN, they are both connected to a rougher (netgear) I use the laptop on both LAN and wirless at home, both systems have Zone Alarm pro installed. Both main and laptop have a D drive that is shared. My roughter has get WEP enabled

1) Local to my home is somebody else with a WiFi, the reason I wanted the scanner was because I was noticing connection tries in my rougher log. I now know there is another person local to me and what to protect my system. Am I right in saying that if I have WEP enabled without the key they can't connect?

2) When out I would like to connect to hotspots. I'm having a little trouble working out how to set my system up so that at home only I can connect to my WiFi or LAN on my settings and only I can see my main system and the laptop and I can transfer/edit/delete files on both systems from either set. But when out and connect to a hot spot I can connect to the internet but nobody can see my system or drive.

Sorry to be a pain

Brian

Good. okay. Good.

Pretty close. It's possible to break in, but unlikely on a home connection. You might change the WEP key occasionally, or use WPA-PSK if your hardware all supports it.

The standard Windows XP - service Pack 2 will let you do that fairly easily. You already have home set up. When you connect to a typical public hotspot, it will show up in the Available Networks list, but won't automatically connect, because it's not WEP or WPA secured. Windows XP wants you to deliberately connect to it. Once you do that, it will automatically connect when within range of a WAP with that SSID (name).

The ZoneAlarm should be set to only allow sharing with the IP address of the home PC. Any time you connect to a public hotspot, it should pop up a window about the "new network", if the IP subnet is a number you haven't seen before. The security on the new network should be very tight. I had no problems with this using Zone Alarm. By default, public hotspots will probably be NAT, so you aren't very exposed to the internet, and some don't easily share between wireless nodes either. In the one case where the hotspot offered the choice of NAT or open connection, I needed the open connection because of my VPN, and the log showed all sorts of failed attempts to connect to my computer.

If you use the Windows XP-SP2 firewall, you need to be more careful. The default is to allow anyone on your subnet to access your files, but "your subnet" is whatever you are connected to at that time. It is better to change your home network to some strange subnet, like 192.168.123, and then specify only the IP address of the PC you really want to share with under "edit scope" in the firewall configuration.