Hot spot detection

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

www.netstumbler.com
detects networks transmitting an SSID.
Your own wireless utility will let you know if you connect

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

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


"Brian" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news24%d.1814$(E-Mail Removed)...
> 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
>
>
>

Netstumbler is what you're looking for.
"Brian" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:P55%d.1875$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Sorry I should have been a little clearer on this. I know I can get
> XP to tell me what's about, but I want something that runs in the
> background and if it can connect to a WiFi then tells me.
>
> Brian
>
>
> "Brian" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news24%d.1814$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> 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.

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:58 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
(E-Mail Removed)se (Stuart Robinson) wrote:

>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 ?

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.
http://www.insecure.org/nmap/

C:\NMap>nmap -T5 -sP 192.168.1.0/24
Starting nmap 3.55 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap ) 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.



--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Stuart Robinson wrote:
> 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.

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

I use Cirond's Winc (www.cirond.com), 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!)

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

Brian <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Zone Alarm pro installed. Both main and laptop have a D drive
> that is shared. My roughter has get WEP enabled

Good. okay. Good.

> Am I right in saying that if I have WEP enabled without the
> key they can't connect?

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.

> 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.

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.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5