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Wi-Fi in the Sky

mindless4210 writes "In an attempt to have the greatest warflying run to date, members from Daily Wireless, Tom's Hardware, SoCalWUG, and Highlands Highspeed teamed up for an amazing two-plane mission around Southern California. They picked up over 3000 access points and 900 clients, established a point to point link between the two planes, and successfully video conferenced in real time over the connection. This is also the first time that the wireless network detection tool Kismet has been taken up in the air, reporting over twice as many APs as NetStumbler. There is some footage of the flight in divx format available here."

16 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How much info? by necro2607 · · Score: 1, Informative

    A couple seconds is all you need.. hell, even a split second is long enough to capture many packets of data.

    I've heard many times of people wardriving on the freeway, so speed isn't really the issue...

    I'd consider the altitude a significant issue, although the radio waves would travel pretty far with almost no interference whatsoever through completely open air...

  2. Re:How much info? by T0t0r0_fan · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think they only gather a couple of packets, then figure out some basic info from them(AP model, WEP-encrypted or not, etc). And those are sent out a couple of times per second, aren't they? So I don't think high speed is much of an issue, either. Gotta RTFA now, though :)

  3. Don't bother with the video dl... by tvh2k · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...it's just of some cherokee flying around, nothing special.

  4. Re:How much info? - Plenty by necro2607 · · Score: 5, Informative
    To quote the book "Maximum Wireless Security" from Sams Publishing:

    Many Access Points have the ability to be configured in a stealth mode, thus "disabling the beacon" as one of their options. In reality, the beacon frame is still sent every 100 milliseconds--only the SSID has been removed.

    Information made available by a single beacon frame, one of which is sent 10 times a second:

    • Basic Service Set ID (BSSID)
    • WEP-enabled or not
    • Type of device: AP or peer
    • MAC address of wireless device
    • Channel device was heard on
    • Signal strength of device
    • Longitude and latitude (if using a GPS)

  5. Re:Kismet Superiority by necro2607 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Netstumbler won't report APs which aren't broadcasting their SSID in the beacon frame, whereas Kismet will. This makes a huge difference as many users are going to choose the option to make their AP "stealth" since they think it'll keep their AP hidden from "hackers" and war-drivers and the likes.

  6. You can fly too! by netringer · · Score: 1, Informative

    As I've had in my .sig you can fly, too. The hardest part is starting. Go to your nearest airport and take the $49 demo flight.

    Be A Pilot has all of the info. Other great resouces are AOPA and EAA.

    --
    Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
  7. Re:./ is repeating itself by not5150 · · Score: 2, Informative

    NOT5150 = Humphrey Cheung My previous Warfly was in December 2003 with one plane.

  8. Mirror of movie by paulproteus · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have made a mirror of the movie so you can spare Tom's the bandwidth.

    --
    |/usr/games/fortune
  9. Re:WEP (in)security assumptions by necro2607 · · Score: 3, Informative

    One thing is, though, that you can actually try dictionary or brute-force password cracking on individual packets, so you could just capture a few packets and do a dictionary or brute-force crack in the comfort of your own home, or even just leave it to your 2ghz home desktop to do the cracking while you're at work or whatever.

    You can see an explanation of this here, with a detailed explanation of how you could potentially crack a WEP key in half a minute...

    Of course, brute-forcing a 104-bit key is going to take a long time, but the point is that you can do it without sitting outside some business' office overnight. ;)

  10. Re:why bother with the video? by John+Hering · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry about the bum video clip, we had our hands full operating all the equipment! Check out the piece on CNN next sat at 12:00PM PST/ 3:00PM EST for some great footage and complete video coverage of the flight.

  11. Re:How much info? by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yep.

    Airspeed is mesured two ways.
    Indicated Airspeed and True Airspeed. True takes into account the wind, if you have a tailwind you can be going faster than the aircraft is possible of flying, like when the B-29s discovered the Jet Stream over the Pacific and would end up going 450-500 MPH when the aircraft was only possible of doing around 290 under it's own power.

    http://www.fact-index.com/a/ai/airspeed_indicato r. html

  12. Re:Kismet got more because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The antennas are receiving data, not sending it. The strength (output) of their antenna is irrelevant to scan for networks, as it does not need to transmit to them. The antenna design does however, a whole hell of a lot, but not its output capabilities.

  13. Re:How much info? by transient · · Score: 4, Informative

    True airspeed most certainly does not take wind into account. You're thinking of ground speed. True airspeed is calibrated airspeed corrected for altitude and non-standard temperature.

    --

    irb(main):001:0>
  14. Re:WEP (in)security assumptions by bbdd · · Score: 3, Informative

    with kismet, you will be able to see the valid mac addresses being used on the network, without being connected to it. from their homepage:

    "Kismet identifies networks by passively collecting packets and detecting standard named networks, detecting (and given time, decloaking) hidden networks, and infering the presence of nonbeaconing networks via data traffic."

    then use something like macchanger, and you're in!

  15. Re:Dumb idea by tyler_larson · · Score: 3, Informative
    * Using uncertified transmitters in a GA aircraft

    What the hell is that supposed to mean? Even on a commercial scheduled flight, any electronic device at all that the pilot and/or carrier deems safe is allowed--and that's under IFR. For GA craft under VFR, there's nothing even remotely illegal or even discouraged about it. There's obviously nothing dangerous about it. Steam gauges, visual navigation. You could lose your whole electrical system in those conditions and still continue the flight safely and legally as planned (albeit not in LAX's airspace) The 2.5 GHz transmitters aren't going to interfere with the com radios, though--you could test that on the ground. Hardly the stuff that would put lives in danger. Did you read your FAR/AIM manual before you took your written test? I did. Yep, the whole damn thing. And let me tell you, there's nothing illegal about what they did.

    * Unexperienced pilots flying formation

    That would be dangerous if they were inexperienced. But how did you arrive at that conclusion? Certainly not by checking the FAA registry -- At least one of the two is an instructor.

    * DOOR POPPING OPEN AT TAKEOFF

    A bit out of the ordinary, sure, but certainly not the stuff of disaster. The Cessna is, after all, a 1973. Perhaps the door latch needs work. Still, an open door has never caused an accident on an unpressurized aircraft. Never? Never. Not even one. Sometimes the pilot forgets to fly the plane when he sees that the door is open. But that's just training.

    No, I don't see anything inherently dangerous about the operations they were conducting. Actually, I think you just came up with a few objections to their procedures to find an excuse to let the slashdot world know that you're a pilot.

    In fact, I was thinking it would be fun to do in my area, if I can get someone to man the laptop. :)

    --
    "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
    RFC 1925
  16. Re:Kismet Superiority by Necr0maN · · Score: 2, Informative

    also, netstumbler is an active scanning tool, meaning that it needs to get associated with an accesspoint first before reporting it, so it needs to talk to the accesspoint for that, and if your card can't transmit that far it won't pick it up. Kismet works in RFmon mode, so it listens in on the airwaves and just reports what it gets from the beacon frames flying around, thus , because it doesn't have to transmit anything, having a much higher range if you use a sensitive NIC (like the cisco 350, or those 200mW prism's). Also, kismet is undetectable. The only pro for the netstumbler way of handling things is that is works with 99% of all cards, since it uses high-level methods of speaking to them.