With the antenna on YOUR laptop, you may be limited. With a high-gain directional antenna (which may not be as portable, may require a separate power supply, etc), a wardriver may get much better range.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've used Hawking's HWU54D (USB, 6db directional antenna - $80 retail) successfully from over 2/3 of a mile in a quiet beach environment and 400-500 ft in my very noisy home environment where I'm surrounded by a dozen other networks.
George
So what you are saying is that, as long as all clients with filtered MACs maintain active connections, a hacker can sniff the signal but cannot actually connect to the access point, no matter what.
Sounds like a system of perfect security to me. Wow!
Taking a moment's reflection, TV Slug mused: | | So what you are saying is that, as long as all clients with filtered MACs | maintain active connections, a hacker can sniff the signal but cannot | actually connect to the access point, no matter what.
Yes. But, most people do not leave their computers powered on 24/7 ... especially laptops.
| Sounds like a system of perfect security to me. Wow!
Save for DOS attacks that could cause clients to shutdown/reboot to attempt to solve the issue, thus allowing the attacker to then connect. And, without encryption, all packets can be reassembled and the contents of traffic known.
WPA (in some form) is the only robust security measure with wireless. WEP is crackable, MAC filtering alone is no good for the above reasons, and SSID broadcast disabling is an illusion of security.
High-Gain antenna = better amplification of incoming signal. Directional antenna = more ability to focus on the exact path to the AP (and ignore interference outside the path). The result is increased effective distance from the AP.
(stuff about his AP being detectable using a pringles packet from at least a megafathom away)
*shrug*. Neither of my APs is detectable more than 40 ft away. Obviously you have a defective AP.... :-)
what bubble?
*shrugs*. This was never a big swinging dick competition for me. If you happen to have an AP that's broadcasting that promiscously, good luck to you. :-)
True. However the AP also has to provide a strong enough signal. Its a two-way process.
Additionally unless you're trying to make it visible from the street, most people tend to stick their APs somewhere convenient for *inside* the house, and that tends to mean near the middle, with walls round it.
YMMV.
Taking a moment's reflection, Mark McIntyre mused: | | True. However the AP also has to provide a strong enough signal. Its a | two-way process.
The point is, though you may not be able to see your AP from more than
40 ft away with your equipment, those that would attack your system likely aren't using your equipment. It *is* a two-way process, but directional antennas will allow you to connect from further away to the same AP.Mine is a standard Linksys WAP54G. I remeasured today, and I have a 50 ft radius with no directional antennae. With the antennae, the signal at the end of the alley is reported at 28%. No good, but fairly stable and usable.
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