Crazy Ad-hocs detected

When out wardriving, I notice ad-hocs that pop up on the screen all over the
city on Network Stumbler, such as beaver1-omni, charleswood1-omni,
shaftesbury11-charleswood, and beaver6-charleswood. They appear to have a
very large range, and are all encrypted. The naming appears to change
depending on the area of the city (I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and
these were detected in the district Charleswood). I was wondering if anyone
had any idea at what they could be. Any ideas, at all (that don't relate to
aliens, lol, plausable ones). These are really getting my friend and I
curious.

Thanks,

Rusty

"Rusty Shackleford" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:CdKSb.349609$ts4.347901@pd7tw3no...
> When out wardriving, I notice ad-hocs that pop up on the screen all over
the
> city on Network Stumbler, such as beaver1-omni, charleswood1-omni,
> shaftesbury11-charleswood, and beaver6-charleswood. They appear to have a
> very large range, and are all encrypted. The naming appears to change
> depending on the area of the city (I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada,
and
> these were detected in the district Charleswood). I was wondering if
anyone
> had any idea at what they could be. Any ideas, at all (that don't relate
to
> aliens, lol, plausable ones). These are really getting my friend and I
> curious.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rusty


Hi Rusty

I am not sure but I am guessing that the omni's are AP's and that the
"double barelled" are going to be bridges between the two names. This would
certainly tie in the with names changing as you move around.

If long range, then the omni's are probably 12dbi collinears - very good if
you need an omni AND plenty of gain.
As for the bridges, I would think you will find these much more directional
and possibly using something like a 20dbi mesh dish - good for many
kilometres if true LOS and no freznel obstruction / interferecnce, even when
using modest power levels. In the district they are perhaps not going for
long range but good signal levels to ensure bandwidth doesn't fall back to 1
Mb.

I would make a wild guess that there is a business there that has different
offfices / branches in different parts of the city and have set up a private
network of AP's and bridges to get the traffic through to all of them. If
very fancy, you might even find that bridges are feeding multiple APs and
bridging out again. So a signal from office A gets bridged to office B with
multiple APs AND bridged on to office C for the next leg of the journey.

Think of organisations with mulitple presences in one district: Banks, law
firms, estate agents, fast food outlets etc.

You might also be able to find the geographical limits of the system by
driving out from the area until you get the last one drop from the screen,
Make a note on the map and move in a different direction. Keep doing that
and you should be able to establish the boundary of the system in use. If
the net convers just one "arbitary" section of the district, it is perhaps
less likely to be a place with a public presence - where you might expect a
more even distribution of outlets / venues.

If you target an AP (the omni's I would guess) and do some DFing, you ought
to be able to triangulate the building fairly easily. Who owns it? If a
multiple use building, DF another and see if there are any names on the
brass plate in common with the first.

Depending on just how curious you are, my guess is you could soon work out
the owner of the network.

Mark

Sorry.

Just re-read your post and used my brain this time.

I'm more puzzled now - unless they are still being used in this way - albeit
without infrastructure. In other words, I am wondering if it is possible
that each Ad-hoc at a given site is linked by some other network (ethernet
that was already there?) and is still allowing the traffic to be "bridged"
to another location - even though a proper bridge is not being used.

LOL - I'm curious now but it's a long wasy to come and find out.

Mark

sorry for being blonde and missing the rather crucial "ad-hoc" in your
subject line.

Thanks. Good suggestions; I'll get on it, 'cause I badly want to know, LOL.


"Mark" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:vbMSb.66$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Sorry.
>
> Just re-read your post and used my brain this time.
>
> I'm more puzzled now - unless they are still being used in this way -
albeit
> without infrastructure. In other words, I am wondering if it is possible
> that each Ad-hoc at a given site is linked by some other network (ethernet
> that was already there?) and is still allowing the traffic to be "bridged"
> to another location - even though a proper bridge is not being used.
>
> LOL - I'm curious now but it's a long wasy to come and find out.
>
> Mark
>
> sorry for being blonde and missing the rather crucial "ad-hoc" in your
> subject line.
>
>

In article <CdKSb.349609$ts4.347901@pd7tw3no>,
Rusty Shackleford <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
:When out wardriving, I notice ad-hocs that pop up on the screen all over the
:city on Network Stumbler, such as beaver1-omni, charleswood1-omni,
:shaftesbury11-charleswood, and beaver6-charleswood. They appear to have a
:very large range, and are all encrypted. The naming appears to change
:depending on the area of the city (I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and
:these were detected in the district Charleswood).

Every once in a while, I hear about a community wireless project
here in Winnipeg, sort of the moral successor to the defunct
Freenet project. Googling around, I see no information available --
though I didn't check Google Groups.
--
Pity the poor electron, floating around minding its own business for
billions of years; and then suddenly Bam!! -- annihilated just so
you could read this posting.

No no no electron was harmed in any way during the sending posting or
reading of this note.

The ASFPE - American Society for the protection of the Electron

Monitors all such processes.

Hemlock nor any trees cut down either!

On 31 Jan 2004 18:22:49 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Walter
Roberson) wrote:

>In article <CdKSb.349609$ts4.347901@pd7tw3no>,
>Rusty Shackleford <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>:When out wardriving, I notice ad-hocs that pop up on the screen all over the
>:city on Network Stumbler, such as beaver1-omni, charleswood1-omni,
>:shaftesbury11-charleswood, and beaver6-charleswood. They appear to have a
>:very large range, and are all encrypted. The naming appears to change
>:depending on the area of the city (I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and
>:these were detected in the district Charleswood).
>
>Every once in a while, I hear about a community wireless project
>here in Winnipeg, sort of the moral successor to the defunct
>Freenet project. Googling around, I see no information available --
>though I didn't check Google Groups.

Rusty Shackleford <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Thanks. Good suggestions; I'll get on it, 'cause I badly want to know, LOL.

You could always do the DF thing with a directional antenna and a PDA.