On 27 Mar 2005 05:47:01 -0800,
(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>The Tech tpes that I deal with often just want the facts in a summary
>point form.
It varies depending upon the type of question. If it's a techy
problem, I wanna see:
1. What problem are you trying to solve? That can usually be done in
one sentence.
2. What hardware and software do you have to work with? That means
make, model, version, software, numbers, etc. I think that's what you
mean by "summary point form".
3. What did you do to try and solve the problem and how did it work?
>This was not the signal that I was concerned about previously.
Ummm... There's more than one "signal"?
>I have identified this these signals as coming from a very nearby mall.
>I have really never caught any information in the Status > Wireless
>Surves Scan.
Is Netstumbler and the WRT54G site survey tool returning the same SSID
and MAC address for these mysterious access points? Normally,
Netstumbler is MUCH more sensitive and will pickup all manner of
access points. That's because it takes only one or two packets to ID
the access point, while the site survey tool in most routers are a bit
more conservative. You will often see access points with Netstumbler
that you cannot connect to as they are far away or weak to negotiate a
connection. However, you indicated that the signal is quite strong,
so you should see it on both Netstumbler and the site survey tool.
>Surprised to see any as have never had 1 receiver in the report even
>though there are several clients on my network.
Neither Netstumbler or the site survey tool will show wireless
clients. Only access points. I guess you should consider yourself
lucky not to have had any nearby access points. I suspect that has
just changed.
>I wondered what this meant.
Growth. New access point has moved in.
>Did this mean that the router had accepted them and given them an ip ?
No. The purpose of the site survey tool is to identify other access
points in the neighborhood, so that you can find a unique SSID and a
clear channel. It has exactly the same function as Netstumbler and
I'm guessing (not sure) uses exactly the same method of finding them.
Your WRT54G does nothing with these except to identify their presence.
>Or did it mean that the router had just found them and was awaiting a
>wep code in return ?
No. Unless you have WDS enabled and functioning, your WRT54G will do
nothing with the access points it has found.
>Thank you for the Mac adress - Manufacturer link.
>I was having touble finding such a table.
It's a handy thing to have. Some of the sniffer tools have a built in
MAC address manufacturer lookup tool to identify the hardware found.
Unfortunately, many manufactories invent their own codes, which make
it difficult to identify. I was also trying to keep a list of common
wireless devices down to the model numbers. I assumed that these
would be issued in an organized manner. Instead, I find some
manufacturers re-using MAC addresses, while others are incredibly
creative and sloppy. I gave up.
This is not very up to date, but includes many MAC addresses not
officially listed by the IEEE.
http://www.cavebear.com/CaveBear/Ethernet/
>Can the Mac adress of the adapter be changed to hide it or is a
>unchangeable number emitted from the adapter ?
1. Wireless router or access point. This is usually fixed in flash
memory and cannot be changed. The "cloning" of the MAC address will
only change the WAN port MAC address. The LAN port remains unchanged.
However, someone found how to change it on the LAN side on the WRT54G.
I can't find the URL (thanks to FireFox eating my bookmarks).
2. Client radios. All too easy to change. The "properties" on the
network adapter usually has a custom MAC address setting. Windoze
will use the MAC address in the registry instead of the one from the
card.
http://students.washington.edu/natetrue/macshift/
http://www.klcconsulting.net/smac/
(there are others)
>Also with netstumbler when it reports that the manufacturer is "fake"
>what does this mean ?
You'll also see access points with a MAC address of 00-00-00-00-00.
If Netstumbler 0.4 can't decode the manufacturers MAC address or some
part of the AP ID data is unreadable, it will return "fake".
"Unknown" would have been a better choice of terms. I've also seen
one Centrino laptop that returned "fake" for every access point it
sees. Seems to be some kind of timing issue, but I'm not sure. I
just took a quick look at the NetStumbler binary with a hex editor.
The list of manufacturers is compiled into the binary. It would have
been better to have the index external, so that new manufacturers
could be added.
>Have seen a fake report but with Linksys SSID.
Most of the customized WRT54G firmware (Sveasoft, OpenWRT, HyperWRT,
etc) will return "fake".
>Again my apologies not trying to be disrespectfull in any way.
Not a problem. It gives me a chance to be obnoxious and critical.
Well, I do that all the time anyway, so it's not exactly a special
event. The problem is not being disrespectful. It's getting
sufficiently organized to ask a question in a manner in which it can
be answered. That's not an easy thing to do and requires some
practice. Consider this feedback as you're doing a marginal job.
It's much like asking support questions over the phone. The person
you're talking to wants to help, but has zero information on what you
own, what you're dealing with, where you've been with it, and why
you're calling. For some unknown reason, many callers start with the
details and leave the problem they're trying to solve for last. It's
difficult to understand the details without the overall context of
knowing what inspired the call. I usually let them rant for a while
until they eventually announce the problem.
Incidentally, if you read other peoples questions, you'll notice that
most people simply do not disclose what equipment and software they
are using. I don't know why people do that, but it drives me to fits
of temporary insanity. You were good enough to disclose that you are
using a WRT54G. However, there are 4 different hardware versions, and
numerous firmware versions. In this case, it wasn't necessary to know
the details, but in the future, it might be helpful to mention the
hardware and firmware versions.
Also, congratulations on the new keyboard.
--
Jeff Liebermann
(E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558
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