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How Do You Locate That Access Point?
parp asks: "As an IT Manager I'm concerned about unauthorized Access Points being installed, or users who setup wireless computer to computer networks. How do you find the exact location of these devices? I've tried walking around the office with a laptop watching the signal, but the signal monitors that are included with most network drivers are very limited. The signal could be upstairs, downstairs or right around the corner, but I can't find it. Results of web searches I've done just tell you how to find a signal (wardrive), not the source. I'd be interested in any software or hardware device that can locate the device within a few feet."
Set up your own access point with the same SSID and see who tries to connect.
Here is an idea for people who bring in an off-the-shelf wireless router. If they are dumb enough to leave SSID visible, perhaps they left it at the defaults. See if you can join it and then try a default password. There you can find the MAC address on the WAN side. If you have at least layer 2 managed switches on you network, you can log into them and look at the tables to determine which port it is comming in to. Hopefully you have a current map of your network (i.e. jack #23 in the wiring closet goes to the General Managers office.) The last place I worked for had no such map, I had to make it myself. If someone cries foul that I suggest they "hack" into someones personal property, tough. The culprit is using Company resources and leaving a door open into the network, possibly affecting others. Hope this helps
"Build something idiot proof, and someone will build a better idiot" - Samuel Clemens
If you have an external card (or antenna), a simple coke-can-type metal cylindrical shield around it will pretty much make it recieve from one direction only.
(Ok, two directions, but one direction contains your laptop, so it should be discernable in the signal strength when you move around)
Dare I say consulting an expert on the judicious use of tinfoil might be appropriate? Call the tinfoil hat brigade! Actually, no need to call, they'll reply below soon enough.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Why isn't there a product available that allows one to "view" RF like a camcorder.. or at least still photos? Could something like a CCD sensor be built that would be tuned to radio frequencies instead of light frequencies? This sort of device would be extremely useful for locating RF signals, helping to find sources of interference, verifying whether antenae are active or not, looking for someone using a radio while hiding behind a bush with a gun, you know.. things like that.
Ouch! The truth hurts!
You must be new.
Such activies are allowed, if not encouraged, from IT people.
At least every place I've ever worked... boggled my mind the things that no one seemed to think was inappropriate or a problem.
As long as you sent out an email saying "We apologizze for the network trouble earlier this morning" -- it wasn't a problem that the network went down because you shut down the wrong server because you logged into the wrong IP.
True, but unauthorized access points give one more point of entry that someone outside the company can use to find a weakness; no network can be 100% secure, and preventing physical access is yet another tool in securing it.
If you have a wireless AP around then someone can get in from outside the building, after hours, when nobody is around to notice the intrusion...
I drink to make other people interesting!
Trying to stop people who obviously are setting up workarounds to serious shortcomings in your companies IT department is not useful. Make them go away by making them unnecessary.
Each access point that exists is an employees time and money your IT department wasted. Now you are wasting more time and money hunting them down and if you succeed you will waste even more by forcing the employee to find another workaround.
Some people's job is to get stuff done. Other people's is to stop people from getting stuff done. Most companies would be better off if they fired everyone of the second type.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Yup. Reflections are going to be a big problem.
I'm a rank amateur when it comes to T-hunting (a sport among ham radio operators that consists of trying to find a hidden transmitter with directional antennas), but after a couple excursions I can guarantee that hunting for a few GHz signal inside an office building is going to be tough. Even with equipment that will let you look at only the offending signal and dedicated df'ing antenna (whether nulling loops or something that chops between multiple antennas and actively compared phase from each), you'll spend a long time chasing reflections.
That's not to say it wouldn't be a fun thing to try, of course.
An alternative might be to attenuate the signal - by replacing the antenna on your wireless card with a badly tuned little stub of wire or sticking it in a metal biscuit tin grounded to the laptop chasis - and then walk the building floors looking for a peak.
Chances are you can cover all the floor space in your building in less time than it will take you to chase reflections around with a directional antenna.
as macgyver did in episode 18, "Ugly Duckling".
Watch it to get a how-to
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