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Microsoft Virtually Duplicates Your Wireless Card
akhomerun writes "Microsoft has released version 1.0 of its experimental new VirtualWiFi Software. The free software enables Windows users to use a single wireless card to connect to multiple wireless networks simultaneously. The current build is a very primitive release, with no support for WEP or WPA encryption."
You need two Wifi cards to do some man in the middle attacks..
;)
Will this make it easier
Does this mean we can connect to an AP and then connect using ad-hoc using the same card to another computer? This would result in a relay
This just doesn't look like typical Microsoft, and IMO that's a good thing...
Source code, a simple web site, and command line operation.....what more could I ask for?
Thanks, Microsoft (geez I still feel wierd saying that....)
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
I currently use dual nics to connect to my home and office network as I presume a lot of other people do, this should help reduce costs in similar scenarios. I didnt install it cause of the WEP/WPA limitations, did anyone else try it? If so does this allow bridging connections?
The blurb makes it sound like this is essentially a way to quickly switch the hardware from one AP to another, buffering packets until the hardware is connected to the proper AP. I'm curious how efficient this process is, as there's bound to be some switching latency. For low-bandwidth non-latency-bound tasks, I assume it's virtually seamless, but I wonder how non-latency-bound you'd need a task to be before it starts becoming problematic.
Wouldn't a proper software-defined radio be the real solution, allowing connections to 2 APs simultaneously with only one antenna? Obviously Microsoft's working with what they've got, and it's certainly an interesting capability, but I'd rather see real effort on SDRs, particularly the regulatory issues therewith.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
p0wn3d by two k1dd13z at the same time!
Microsoft releasing tech previews with source code ? I mean, what has the world come to ?. Oh, sure it is under Shared Source license - but it raises serious questions about the way MS is dealing with the latest challenge from F/OSS. After all students are the major inflow of talent into F/OSS (starting from Linus Torvalds ...).
The only thing that scares me is that their website has an image that is 960x720 px resized using img tag height and widths - Which looks like it was done in powerpoint using 3DText. I wanted to pull the code and read it to see if it was some kind of trojan or something. All in all, it looks too unprofessional (website mainly) - at least compared to all the open source project sites I've run into.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
In related news, another Microsoft department is releasing a new DRM scheme that will prevent "unauthorized duplication of your wireless card, virtual or otherwise."
Innovation. From the beast..... I need to sit down :-)
This is Shared Source NOT free software.
May I use your sig please?
... found using Google, at: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/ranveer/multinet/ software.htm
And the author's page, which follows quite naturally:
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/ranveer/ ...which, if you look at it, will explain the origins of this "Microsoft" project :) His papers on "MultiNet" date back to June 2003.
Gan Family Homepage
Microsoft released something with sources...
Quick! Someone brutally abuse their trust by ripping off the design and idea. Release a fully (and better) working Linux VirtualWiFi driver by tomorrow!
Hack evil minions! Hack hack hack!!!
lol, wtf are you on about ?
Wish I knew who I was a fanboy of, it would help me be more predicatle!
moov over and let me at the fire, I'm fresian !!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The comments on the website indicate that the code buffers traffic meant for another AP between switching networks. This of course is hindered by the time it takes to complete the 802.11 authentication and association exchange as indicated with the suggested timer values for the supported wireless cards.
Intel Centrino cards are well-known in the industry as being particularly aggressive at associating and authentication to an access point after being deauthenticated, thereby shortening the time needed to switch between different networks. It's unfortunately Centrino cards aren't on the supported list yet, they would make for an interesting evaluation target to use this kind of technology in a sort of mesh wireless network.
Thanks, Microsoft (geez I still feel wierd saying that....)
Why should you feel weird saying that? I say it all the time. Oh wait, I normally say it sarcastically.
How much use this will really get. Connecting two wireless networks may be 'cool,' but how many offices maintain two separate wireless networks? I am sure there are some, as some of you will surly point out. If you want an internal wireless network, that should already exist since you wireless network should be behind your router/firewall anyways.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Grow up dude. It's something I've never seen before I found it interesting.
http://www.sydney-webcam.com
I was suprised when they made an MSN Search plugin for Firefox (http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/09/2 9/475316.aspx)
But this...
While I'm a linux fan, if the summary is accurate, you're comment is off-base.
Layer 3 aliasing is not the same thing as multiple physical/radio connections. If anything it's more like channel bonding than aliasing.
That said, I don't know how useful this would be. I mean for a windows box it is. I could see the usefulness of this for a repeater but in such cases I'd just use linux and save the license fees.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Ugh, so this will be the eighth version of Vista? Or the 21st version?
Except that the above creates an alias, using the same connection.
The above allows you to associate to more than one wireless network using just one wireless card. Try plugging your regular nic into two switches at once and see how it goes...
that does explain a lot. i'm still very suprised that a webpage looking like that is part of microsoft.com
Care to point us to where you've seen this before?
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Yep, at the tender age of five, Linus Torvalds conceived a method by which to clone network interfaces in the, as of yet, nonexistent Linux kernel.
If I recall well, you're only able to do that since 1998's version of net-tools' ifconfig.
Mind Booster Noori
Its very strange that Microsoft would be doing this, totally out of chatacter for them which makes me think that using multiple wireless networks is something that going to play an integral part of a future product.
Watch this space.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
At the moment, wireless AP's don't have to worry about frequent switching.
But if everyone and their brother started using these things, suddenly a given AP is going to have to deal with a huge amount of hookup requests.
Now admittedly I don't know much about the guts of an AP, and how limited their processing ability is (apart from bandwidth)... but this certainly isn't what they were designed for. I would be surprised if they could handle this kind of abuse from multiple users.
Or am I completely off base?
If I connect them to each other, not only can I send files, email, pictures, etc to my computer from my computer, but with this technology I can do it wirelessly.
I don't like having to edit the registry to remove things, it is annoying to say the least. Isn't there a better way of doing this?
VirtualWiFi Uninstallation
Q: I am unable to uninstall VirtualWiFi. Nothing seems to work. Is there a brute force method?
A: Yes. Go to the Windows registry using Start->Run->"regedit". Note that you will be modifying the registry at your own risk. It is always better to save a copy of the registry before modifying it. From the registry, look for all entries having VirtualWiFi, and delete them. This is better done in safe mode. Also run "VirtualWiFiSvc.exe -remove" to remove the service.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm really only interested if I can bond the two connections together and stea^H^H^H^H borrow twice as much bandwidth.
Well this is the first good piece of innovative software I have seen come out of Microsoft in awhile. Being able to connect to numerous Access POints at once not only creates an Aux connection but may also allow for relaying of wireless signals over larger areas. Is this going to create the ability for large scale wireless networks for places like... The middle of no where, which is where I am from so that when I head home to see the parents I can have wireless and not have JUST dialup as an option. Oh god I hope so. I hate dialup with a passion, how did I deal with it when I lived at home?! HOW?!?!
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
This just doesn't look like typical Microsoft, and IMO that's a good thing...Source code, a simple web site, and command line operation.....what more could I ask for?
You could ask for the ability to modify and redistribute the code. I'll believe Microsoft has changed when they embrace the GPL, quit paying people to badmouth everyone, stop pulling SCO stunts.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
As always with Microsoft, security is an afterthought.
I'd say it's par for the course...
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
I'm wondering if you could effectively double your speed by connecting to more than one access point. Wireless access is everywhere today, you could set up your laptop and instantly get at least 2 access point connections almost anywhere, like San Francisco for example.
There are a number of actually useful reasons for this kind of driver, security being one of them. E.g. you could split out your LAN from your Internet connection and allow users to log into different access points simultaneously to get the work done that they need: stuff on the Internet versus stuff on the local network.
OTOH, if you can set up one of your virtual WiFi cards to be an ad hoc access point routing to another virtual WiFi instance that is connected to an internal network, then other people could hop on and use your computer as a WiFi router.
The real question is, can you virtualize Slashdot opinions?
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
The # of encrypted networks here in Eastern Canada are greatly outnumbered by the # of wideopen networks. This is a cool piece of news.. Nice way to start the day :)
~jennifer.k~
shouldn't a very primative release by like version 0.1 beta?
I don't have a wifi cardbus card to play with but maybe someone else does. Mac OS allows network sharing, where you can for example, run an ethernet cable to your mac, and "share" that network on your wireless nic, to other nearby wireless users. The opposite is also possible, to pull in a wireless signal and share it on your ethernet port. (useful for when you have a 2nd computer that is not wifi capable, and no way to run a cable, but you have another mac with wifi and ethernet to act as a bridge)
Would it be possible to plug in a wifi cardbus card into say, a powerbook that already had wifi, and bridge between the built-in and the add-on wifi? I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work, besides maybe interferance.
Not as cheap as doing it with one nic, but maybe more efficient?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Anyone see the similarities to the old WinModems? You remember these little combos of a sound card, and software drivers running under Windows. They relied on the CPU to do a lot of the processing of the modem connection.
Computer makers liked them because they were cheaper, and took up less space in a laptops.
Do you also remember that they did not work on Linux? I remember trying some Linux drivers made for a Lucent modem and don't think I got it working on my laptop.
Is this another way for Microsoft to discourage people from using a different OS? We will see where they take it. If computer makes can save money by moving some of the processing to the CPU I am sure some will take advantage of the opertunity. They did it with the WinModem.
"The current build is a very primitive release, with no support for WEP or WPA encryption."
Security comes second. Microsoft is getting serious about security. Yeah ok.
Great idea! That would allow you to switch access points while you're on the move; similar to ordinary cellular networks. The buffering would indeed create some latency, but if both connections are already established it should hardly be noticeble.
Yes, but if I remember correctly it is pretty complicated to actually handle parallel radio signals using 802.11b. More likely, it would come down to a form of time sharing with consequently higher latency. Guess they just choose the way of least resistance given that Wifi cards are a relatively cheap component in perspective of longhorn/vista's hardware requirements.
Anyway, being able to switch AP with low latency would considerably close the gap between wireless voip and gsm phones.
...without dropping the connection at least once a day, I'd be happy. Microsoft, makers of the finest semi-functional software in the world!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Care to point us to where you've seen this before?
Sure: ifconfig eth0 alias 192.168.2.10 netmask 255.255.255.0
There is a linux equivalent in development, see http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-netdev&m=112 872348122315&w=2
Quote:
Here at Devicescape we've written an IEEE 802.11 stack for Linux, and
are considering some design changes as part of proper kernel integration
and open source release. We have many man years worth of work in this
codebase, and it is running multiple commercial products, as well as
being part of the Wi-Fi testbed. ...
These new ethernet interfaces are virtual (have no tx queues), and
simply encapsulate the frame with an 802.11 header, and transmit it on
the real hardware interface. In merging with net/ieee80211 these
interfaces could also work with 802.11 frame format, and then they are
there simply to multiplex and demultiplex multiple virtual access
points, WDS links or client connections.
NEWS FLASH! Microsoft employees people with working synapses like most people in the world posses. I think its just that MS has finally started listening to it own people and have got on the "open source" band wagon.
Life is a constant change...the way you survive is determined by your willingness to adapt.
many /.ers must be getting ready to jump off some bridges. Just kidding, I'm sure you'll come up with something saying MS stole it from your favorite open source developer.
http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/
Microsoft is creating a proprietary software WiFi simulator. The point is that once you move the processing of a WiFi signals to a proprietary software simulator the hardware will no longer work under Linux. This is what happened with the WinModem.
The real problem with this is the fact that the 802.11 medium-access-control (MAC) layer has real problems in multihop topologies like that. The flows that have to go through more hops get starved and get virtually no throughput. We need a better MAC.
Winmodems were utter crap and hardly ever worked properly, at least back in the late 90s when I was worked for a couple of dialup ISP
...without none of the hassle of wireless security features like WEP and WPA! God bless Microsoft for being consistent!
IronChefMorimoto
Well there's primitive, and then there's really, really primitive.
So who's got a non-WEP, non-WPA wireless network we can test this on? Oh, no-one on the planet.
What are the benefits of such a thing? If I had a bittorrent going on each connection, would it make it faster? As in saving them both to the same file.
1 is alpha, 2 is alpha, 3 is beta, then you move on to 95 as your first official release.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
You come of more as a troll here. Microsoft is actually doing something good and they're quite aware that this prototype doesn't have all the expected features. If you want to help them, then go download the source and add it yourself.
The current build is a very primitive release
And how is that any different than the current XP SP2 release?
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
Explain how that command allows you to simultaneously connect to a multiple different wireless networks, each with their own SSID and/or channel numbers.
Windows has been able to alias an interface at the IP level since at least NT 4.0 (TCP/IP section of network configuration, Advanced...)
...get it working first, and bolt the security on later.
/me shakes head.
Because that's worked out SO well when they've done it in the past.
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
I'm not sure the poster meant this to be funny.
Servers use multiple NICs to increase bandwidth. Why shouldn't a wireless user do the same?
This is not what the Microsoft tool does at all.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
as of this posting.. the link provided in the article is non-responsive :D
There's already implemented Linux IEEE 802.11 stack supporting multiple BSSID ( Virtual AP ) and multiple client mode ( Virtual STA ) connections on the same radio interface simultaneously. And it supports WEP/WPA/WPA2 encryption on every virtual interface. And it's linux thing!!
This is yesterday's press release I found http://i-newswire.com/pr48263.html
and link to their site http://www.wilibox.com/index.php?id=wili
"Sure: ifconfig eth0 alias 192.168.2.10 netmask 255.255.255.0"
You keep using that phrase, I do not think you know what it means.
Translation: It doesn't do what you think.
In short, it appears that your basic network knowledge is lacking, as you cannot distinguish between various layers of the ISO networking model. Please, don't post in ignorance as it makes you look foolish.
I wonder if the source code will give me some insight into how to impliment a windows equivelant of linux's monitor mode for wireless nics. As far as I can tell, that functionality doesn't exist on windows thus far.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,390204 18,39231005,00.htm/
YAY Microsoft!
You knew it was happening, it would be really nice if serious open source projects stayed away from this stuff until there is a decisive technological leader/standard.
With Wi-Fi equipment hitting $20 only 2 years after it was created there will definitly be a push by the Hardware Manufacturers to try to implement a more expensive standard, lets not let that happen.
./team HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
1. Receive Wi-Fi (or use my EV-DO card for a a connection)
2. Reserve it, making it look like the airport lounge's version
3. Replace every google ad served with my own!
4. Steal credit card numbers, etc
5. Profit!
Of course, I wouldn't really do this, but since such an attack is very possible, I'm VERY careful what I do in an airport lounge. No banking, or work, just the usual kill-time-by-viewing-pr0n-and-slashdot type of thing.
Best Buy can have you arrested
This is a bad idea, wifi cards will start coming out that are only windows compatible. :-(
Microsoft In The Middle
For some steps toward 802.11b SDR, check out my student's Summer of Code project. Volunteers gratefully accepted!
An issue we didn't recognize when starting out is that 802.11b actually wants 120MHz or more of bandwidth for a single low-speed channel; it really does spread a lot. Our current hardware really only gives us 60MHz, which will capture the main lobe, which should be enough. Eventually, we might have to go to a hybrid "soft" radio where the despreading is done with some kind of front-end magic, although obviously this is a last-resort solution.
does this mean that I can get two connections with the same address and have double bandwith, may be I will be just using to indemendet channels at the radio transciver level? Or would the efective bandwith of each channel drop dramatically (even lower than half of) I dont no but if the we the first is posible at hardware level, may be they can not provide support for WEP becouse the need of decoding the double... just wondering...
In cell networks, each handset retains a low-level session to at a minimum two cell towers. When the signal from one tower gets too low, it pops over to the other.
Good things about this technology:
- I see this technology being used to reduce handoff delays between networks, or even between access points. The neat thing is that it does it on the client side, not the infrastructure side.
- The thing that this is going to be best at is mitigating the problems streaming video or audio across a network, where delays of 50ms can kill your stream.
- Solutions like MobileIP where each AP becomes aware of a care-of address that the client was previously associated with help handoff, but require new firmware on the access point or router. This puts that intelligence on the client side. Increasing the queue depths on both sides couldn't hurt, however.
- Because 90-95% of the handoff time between access points is a rescan for new channels, keeping a session going between two different networks and being aware of the channels around you will actually reduce congestion and handoff time because there is no rescan and its consequent flood of PROBE frames which clog the channel with BROADCAST responses!
- Because the clients will retain knowledge of who's around them, the access point's BROADCAST frames can come less often than the present ~100ms, increasing the available bandwidth.
Not-so-good things about this tech:
- Not a lot.
- Subnet resolution might be a problem, no, wait, it wouldn't because they maintain a separate IP address for each virtual adapter. However, if those IP addresses are on the same subnet and someone pings the broadcast address of the subnet, the clients on the other network might respond as well... but I guess that would only happen if the virtual adapters were bridged.
That's usually the problem with things like MobileIP - some routers don't get the message and update their routing tables so packets get duplicated all over the place.
- Available IP address space problems. If everyone is opening two sessions...
- Doesn't support WEP, but who cares. Everything important should be encrypted at the application level anyway. Thing that concerns me is the lack of 802.1x support.
All in all, not a bad idea. I hope to see more out of these guys. I'm taking this down to the lab to run tcpdump and airopeek on it.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
"Linksys... the world's #1 free wireless ISP."
A new Microsoft product... with no security enabled... didn't see that one coming! In all seriousness though, this looks like it might be decent once its gets out of 1.0
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
haven't tried this yet, but this seems like an innovative idea.. sorta like virtual wifi nic bonding. wireless networks are unreliable on their own but if we had a conncetion to multiple wireless networks.. we might actually be able to depend on that connection and maybe build reliable services around that.
http://www.awwsheezy.com
no, I didn't mean this to funny. Exactly, SithLordOfLanc, servers use it, why can't wireless users do the smae. Most people's internet connections aren't higher than 3 or 4 Mbps, so a wireless card should be able to handle it.
In truth this is a very cool if obvious idea. I had considered this myself, not to imply I have the skill to implement this sort of thing. I can see priority mode access being next to impossible this way, because the timing to ensure you don't miss the coordination info; but CSMA/CA seems like it would not take much modification to the driver beyond a round-robin setup to listen to each network for a fixed time, and a queues hold packets to be sent until the card is on the appropriate network. Sure you would drop tons of packet that are sent while you are on the other network but we can always count on TCP to re-send those if the durations of time quantum are shorter then the senders sliding window for the given transmit rate.
Now for the cheap shoot at M$. If it can't support WEP or WPA then you basically can't connect to any network besides Bubba's default Linksys from the street. In such place there is likely only one network anyway. So leave it to M$ for frosting more useless bloat on to the winders cake. Hopefully someone will make an OSS version that is usable.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Not only are you wrong (IP aliasing is not what this is doing, as everyone else has pointed out), but the way you're doing IP aliasing is deprecated in Linux. You should be using ip (the command line tool) instead of ifconfig, and reading the Linux Advanced Routing how-to.
Microsoft MultiNet (Virtual WiFi) could be used to do some really tricky things if the AP buffering were enabled.
i d=27396&group_id=124603
What would be much more interesting of course, is if this were implemented in OSS and not just a Microsoft Research proof of concept. Take a look at OPN, an idea I've been kicking around for some time to see just what you could do with virtual interface support and WiFi.
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?doc
You can do a lot more with this than just man-in-the-middle attacks.
i've downloaded the M$ VirtualWiFi Software Version 1.0 just to try it with my old lucent PCMCIA card, however atheros miniPCI was still there in my laptop, after some playing with VirtualWiFi settings i have removed it but since then zero config stoped working with my :(
atheros, it can't see any wireless networks any longer. Tried everything, other supplicants, restarting services, reinstalling atheros drivers, enabling/disabling device, even disconnecting miniPCI, it seems registry is corrupted. If there will be no answer from M$ support will need to reinstall windows (XP SP2 witha all these updates)
did you try the registry hack:)