newb

Configuration and operational information about stumbled AP's

newb

Postby Guest » Sat Apr 06, 2002 12:19 pm

ok newbie question time.
on my campus, there is a wireless network. the network is set up such that it works with the ThinkPads [running win2k] and Lucent/IBM[orinoco(sic)] cards that are distributed to priviledged business students. I am not among them, but i do have my own ThinkPad 390e[333,192,6.4] and a [cheap-ass] Prism2 D Link 650. I have spoken to the head laptop support guy and he assures me that my card will Not work on their network, especially since i am running winXP, which apparently lacks support for multiple WEP keys[?]. it is possible he is blowing smoke up my ass, however, considering that i spoke with one of the Main Guys in the ITService and he was running XP with a sharp-looking Cisco card. he wouldn't tell me how though;)
so, using a combination ApSniff and Aerosol i detected 5 AP's around the cafeteria area. most were WEP-enabled, but one was not. i could see its MAC address, etc
so with my setup, should i be able to access this un-encrypted connection? should i let windows govern the settings? or set it up manually? DHCP or guess an IP? ad-hoc or what? is it even possible..? i never recieve any packets through the wireless connection, the counter remains at zero, despite saying "connected". i need a hint!
Guest
 

give this a try...

Postby Guest » Sat Apr 06, 2002 2:48 pm

First thing you need to do, is the AP your seeing thats not WEP enabled. Look for the SSID and set that in your wireless card settings...then the card should be able to do the rest for you as far as channel and such...Next go to your local network settings and set them to DHCP...Now if its a college I'm sure they have a sweet DHCP server that will assign an address for you...now the problem you might run into is a DNS server, if you try in a browser www.google.com and get cannot display this page, then try putting this into your browser 216.239.51.100, thats googles IP address, if you get the page then this means you do not have an DNS server identified...to correct this go to network settings and go to the DNS tab and add these Ip's there...216.38.168.210 and 216.38.168.211, these are free public DNS server ip address's I always put these in my list of DNS servers just in case the present one I'm useing goes down I don't have to resolve names myself...IF you have any other questions, concerns, or problems let me know and I'll try to clear them up for ya...Happy Surfin...
Guest
 

ok that's cool

Postby Guest » Sat Apr 06, 2002 7:42 pm

thanks for the info on the public DNS server.. that could be handy. But i still can't get online :(. I can get an assigned IP address, certainly, but i think what i need is a gateway IP. the server will not assign one for me. so i still get the 'connected' message, but receive no packets, and can ping nothing. i also tried manually setting my IP to the one that was assigned, and set the DNS also. however, this time out i couldn't even 'sniff' the non-WEP node anyway, for whatever reason. so who knows. i know they are using some 40-bit WEP and some are 104. maybe these 40-bit AP could be cracked fairly quickly? any experience? i pretty much told the campus techies that since they couldn;t help me, i would have to hack it. they said that was ok ;)
what about MAC spoofing? is this realistic? shit i guess i should just bear down and switch to Linux, then i could use all the really nifty tools!
Guest
 

Gateway address

Postby Guest » Sat Apr 06, 2002 9:44 pm

gateway is usually a .1 address. so let's say the ip address you have is 199.199.230.39, your gateway would be 199.199.230.1
Guest
 

Discrimination/ False advertising?

Postby Guest » Sun Apr 07, 2002 5:23 am

I am assuming that your campus is a public or private university.

While the brute force method may eventually get access, I am wondering why a university would discriminate against one group of students in providing services? Is wireless access a feature that the business students pay extra for, or is it provided with part of the regular tuition. Also, is there any advertising or recruiting literature that would imply other students should have access to the wireless network?

If there is any way to argue that you have paid for and are entitled to this service and they are not providing it as advertised, then getting the correct network information and encryption keys from them so you can use your own equipment might be much easier.

Further, if the wireless network is installed in common areas (student union, open air cafe, etc.), rather than within the confines of the business school, you and other students could reasonably expect that preventing your access is not about being a business student, but merely discriminating against a group of students. Do you have a law school associated with your university? Most law students love to take on their university over such an apparent discriminatory action.
Guest
 

Gateways

Postby Guest » Sun Apr 07, 2002 7:17 am

Gateways are USUALLY addressed in as .1, as our anonymous poster says. However, don't assume that. Big networks, such as those at a univerisity, tend to be subnetted. If the network is subnetted, then the gateway will usually be one above the octec division point.

For example, two subnets on a standard address scheme:
xxx.xxx.xxx.0-127 and xxx.xxx.xxx.128-255. The gateways are by convention at 1 and 129.

But remember, there is no requirement that they be there. They could be, say .5 and .252, or anywhere else between .1 to .127 and .129 to .254 that the net admin wants them.

Cheers,
Thorn
Guest
 

that's also good to know...

Postby Guest » Sun Apr 07, 2002 3:30 pm

..i am also wondering if i need to set a Workgroup? i am assuming that it is an NT network, the wired network is certainly NT, and that i should be using the client micros~1 for networks in network setup. if this is the case, does it not follow that i would need a workgroup name?...how does it work on other servers/platforms? i haven't managed to discover any APs downtown, but i am usually on the bus and maybe the signal isn't making through the steel..and i am really considering switching to RedHat..or OS X for that matter.
Guest
 

Suggestion...

Postby Guest » Mon Apr 08, 2002 10:59 am

Not as fun as finding it all yourself, but with help from a friend or a little "social engineering", you could get the info you need. Do you know any of these "priviledged business students"? You could just get a hold of his/her laptop for a few minutes and get the info you need from the network properties of the legit laptop. If you don't know these students, just set yourself up as a CIS employee from your university and tell one of these students that his WLAN card is sending the server error reports and you need to check it out. That'd get your info as well.
Guest
 

indeed

Postby Guest » Mon Apr 08, 2002 1:00 pm

that would be fun...i tried it in a more normal way today, just asked a guy how he had his set up.
he was running winME [most of them have win2k] and it appears they use some kind of oronico[how do you spell it] client software for the set-up. there are fields to enter the WEP keys [looks like 40-bit alphanumeric] and everything else seems to be deafult [DHCP, auto seek AP, no gateway]
in this Network Places, TCP/IP was all very standard looking as well.

i went back upstairs to see the laptop support guys to just ask for a WEP key to try..but the joker there didn;t know, and the only guy who knows Anything about it was out.

on the other hand, a guy in the computer store where they sell the nice, supported IBM/lucent cards [for $159.99CDN] says that they have managed to get USRobotics cards working also. i dont't know what chipset USR cards use. he also informed me that all the routers are Lucent.

WTF? i thought there was a wireless *standard* with all this 802.11 business. i just don't understand how one $150 card will work and the other won't...
Guest
 

should i..

Postby Guest » Mon Apr 08, 2002 1:47 pm

..try finding a similar client program to the orinoco one? i am looking on dlink's ftp site about all i can find is a pdf manual.
>>tick
Guest
 

Postby Guest » Mon Apr 08, 2002 1:48 pm

Any 802.11b card will work on the system, its just in the set-up my friend...As to my knowledge there is no only certain brand filter on AP's, if there is then thats news to me....
Guest
 

Postby Guest » Mon Apr 08, 2002 1:52 pm

I had a dwl650 card and it worked on anything and everything so if thats the card you have then you can get on there system...there is a client manager on the dlink site...go here ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/ at that ftp site you'll see a bunch of modles pick yours and get what you need...
Guest
 

found that

Postby Guest » Tue Apr 09, 2002 7:56 pm

got the client manager.. go figure i would have to donwload from the DWL500 folder to get the DWL 650 utility. sadly this client is for Win98 machines, and has a hard time accessing the WinXP driver, and cannot access the registry at all. i couldn;t find a similar prog for XP/NT. is it assumed that XP has all the configurations builtin and no client is necessary? somebody>> please send me a Mac!!
Guest
 

Postby Guest » Tue Apr 09, 2002 10:12 pm

I originally bought a prism chipset card and used ApSniff for a couple of days. It doesn't seem to like WinXP a whole lot. I would try to find the non-WEP access point again. When you are nearby, shut off ApSniff and just go into the network properties in WinXP. I've found that the wireless config in XP is great by itself. Go to "view network connections" and look at the wireless one. First try right clicking on it and choosing "view available networks." If you don't see one, I've had luck in the advanced properties. If you choose that it will give you an option to refresh. Try a few times and you should see the SSID of the AP. From there you should be able to connect. I'd try the previous threads advice about the dns addresses when you get on. Hope that helps.
Guest
 

thanks

Postby Guest » Wed Apr 10, 2002 11:43 pm

ok thanks guys, i'll keep trying..appreciate the input!!
Guest
 


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