Using Ethereal for Sniffing Wireless but No Packets on WindowsXP

Hello,

I have a laptop set up with Windows XP, the wireless card I have won't
work with Linux, and I am using Netstumbler to find wireless access
points adn doing some wardriving, while running Ethereal I don't get
any packets on any of the access points I pick up as active. I was
reading a paper that stated that if you use Windows to attempt to
sniff wireless that you would only get local packets and not any other
traffic but if you use *nix that you can get packets all the way back
to the other router.

Is there anyone that has been able to do any Wardriving, using
WindowsXP and been able to sniff any packets successfully?? If so,
how?

I know I could just go buy a diferent card that would work with Linux,
but I can't do that right now but I am giving it serious thought but
all-in-all I'd like to get this solution to work....sot of an
obsession now.....



Thanks!!

Tory

Tory Brown wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a laptop set up with Windows XP, the wireless card I have won't
> work with Linux, and I am using Netstumbler to find wireless access
> points adn doing some wardriving, while running Ethereal I don't get
> any packets on any of the access points I pick up as active. I was
> reading a paper that stated that if you use Windows to attempt to
> sniff wireless that you would only get local packets and not any other
> traffic but if you use *nix that you can get packets all the way back
> to the other router.
>
> Is there anyone that has been able to do any Wardriving, using
> WindowsXP and been able to sniff any packets successfully?? If so,
> how?
>
> I know I could just go buy a diferent card that would work with Linux,
> but I can't do that right now but I am giving it serious thought but
> all-in-all I'd like to get this solution to work....sot of an
> obsession now.....
>
>
>
> Thanks!!
>
> Tory

Hello Tory,

I just took a short look to
http://www.ethereal.com/docs/user-gu...inInstall.html

Maybe you Did not install WinPcap?

Can you test this at some own network? I would try to get an internet
connection about wireless lan, sniffing. So you should see some packets
coming in. I just tried under linux using ethereal. But I can imagine,
that there is something with your driver. Did it supports the
promiscious-mode? In this mode your network adapter will also get
packets which are not adressed to it.

I used Netstumbler a short time...until I got my orinoc classic gold
card. In my opinion a real good card and the possibility to adapt a
antenna is real nice - especially for driving arround in a car...

May I ask in which country you are wardriving? I hadn't to much time
to do it by myself and I am interested about that in other countries.

Only in the few big cities there is a real scene in Germany...

regards,

Jens

The vendor-provided drivers for Windows XP do not support promiscuous mode.
The wifi adapter looks like a virtual Ethernet to your XP's TCP/IP stack.
Ethereal can intercept traffic to/from your wifi adapter as pseudo-Ethernet
frames, but it cannot see any other traffic.

Linux has drivers that support full promiscuous mode, so it does not have
this limitation. There are proprietary drivers for Windows that support
promiscuous mode, but they are generally available only in commercial wifi
analyzer packages that cost many hundreds of dollars.

I have heard of people getting an evaluation copy of a commercial package (I
won't mention which), and "borrowing" the driver, which can be massaged to
fit under WinPcap.

"Jens Hartmann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:co5qp3$lvh$05$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Tory Brown wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a laptop set up with Windows XP, the wireless card I have won't
>> work with Linux, and I am using Netstumbler to find wireless access
>> points adn doing some wardriving, while running Ethereal I don't get
>> any packets on any of the access points I pick up as active. I was
>> reading a paper that stated that if you use Windows to attempt to
>> sniff wireless that you would only get local packets and not any other
>> traffic but if you use *nix that you can get packets all the way back
>> to the other router.
>>
>> Is there anyone that has been able to do any Wardriving, using
>> WindowsXP and been able to sniff any packets successfully?? If so,
>> how? I know I could just go buy a diferent card that would work with
>> Linux,
>> but I can't do that right now but I am giving it serious thought but
>> all-in-all I'd like to get this solution to work....sot of an
>> obsession now.....
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks!!
>>
>> Tory
>
> Hello Tory,
>
> I just took a short look to
> http://www.ethereal.com/docs/user-gu...inInstall.html
>
> Maybe you Did not install WinPcap?
>
> Can you test this at some own network? I would try to get an internet
> connection about wireless lan, sniffing. So you should see some packets
> coming in. I just tried under linux using ethereal. But I can imagine,
> that there is something with your driver. Did it supports the
> promiscious-mode? In this mode your network adapter will also get packets
> which are not adressed to it.
>
> I used Netstumbler a short time...until I got my orinoc classic gold card.
> In my opinion a real good card and the possibility to adapt a antenna is
> real nice - especially for driving arround in a car...
>
> May I ask in which country you are wardriving? I hadn't to much time
> to do it by myself and I am interested about that in other countries.
>
> Only in the few big cities there is a real scene in Germany...
>
> regards,
>
> Jens

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 04:19:07 GMT, "gary" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>The vendor-provided drivers for Windows XP do not support promiscuous mode.
>The wifi adapter looks like a virtual Ethernet to your XP's TCP/IP stack.
>Ethereal can intercept traffic to/from your wifi adapter as pseudo-Ethernet
>frames, but it cannot see any other traffic.
>
>Linux has drivers that support full promiscuous mode, so it does not have
>this limitation. There are proprietary drivers for Windows that support
>promiscuous mode, but they are generally available only in commercial wifi
>analyzer packages that cost many hundreds of dollars.
>
>I have heard of people getting an evaluation copy of a commercial package (I
>won't mention which), and "borrowing" the driver, which can be massaged to
>fit under WinPcap.
>
>"Jens Hartmann" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:co5qp3$lvh$05$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Tory Brown wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have a laptop set up with Windows XP, the wireless card I have won't
>>> work with Linux, and I am using Netstumbler to find wireless access
>>> points adn doing some wardriving, while running Ethereal I don't get
>>> any packets on any of the access points I pick up as active. I was
>>> reading a paper that stated that if you use Windows to attempt to
>>> sniff wireless that you would only get local packets and not any other
>>> traffic but if you use *nix that you can get packets all the way back
>>> to the other router.
>>>
>>> Is there anyone that has been able to do any Wardriving, using
>>> WindowsXP and been able to sniff any packets successfully?? If so,
>>> how? I know I could just go buy a diferent card that would work with
>>> Linux,
>>> but I can't do that right now but I am giving it serious thought but
>>> all-in-all I'd like to get this solution to work....sot of an
>>> obsession now.....
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks!!
>>>
>>> Tory
>>
>> Hello Tory,
>>
>> I just took a short look to
>> http://www.ethereal.com/docs/user-gu...inInstall.html
>>
>> Maybe you Did not install WinPcap?
>>
>> Can you test this at some own network? I would try to get an internet
>> connection about wireless lan, sniffing. So you should see some packets
>> coming in. I just tried under linux using ethereal. But I can imagine,
>> that there is something with your driver. Did it supports the
>> promiscious-mode? In this mode your network adapter will also get packets
>> which are not adressed to it.
>>
>> I used Netstumbler a short time...until I got my orinoc classic gold card.
>> In my opinion a real good card and the possibility to adapt a antenna is
>> real nice - especially for driving arround in a car...
>>
>> May I ask in which country you are wardriving? I hadn't to much time
>> to do it by myself and I am interested about that in other countries.
>>
>> Only in the few big cities there is a real scene in Germany...
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> Jens
>


That is what I was afraid of, I guess it is time to somehow get a
Orinono and plug in an antenna.

Thaks for the response!!

Tory