Frequently Asked Questions

---

The following Frequently Asked Questions, answered by the authors of this book, are designed to both measure your understanding of the concepts presented in this chapter and to assist you with real-life implementation of these concepts. To have your questions about this chapter answered by the author, browse to www.syngress.com/solutions and click on the “Ask the Author” form. You will also gain access to thousands of other FAQs at ITFAQnet.com.

1.	What wireless cards will work with Kismet?
2.	Will Kismet work on a Macintosh?
3.	I like to use Stumbverter to map my WarDrives. Is there a way to convert my Kismet logs to a format that I can feed into Stumbverter?
4.	I like WarDriving with my Personal Digital Assistant instead of a laptop. Will Kismet work with my PDA?
5.	If people don’t broadcast their SSID, isn’t that a clue that they don’t want their access points to be found? Why would I want to use a product like Kismet that seems to violate that?
6.	What is the difference between an active scanner and a passive scanner?
7.	Kismet doesn’t appear to work with any 802.11g cards. Why is this?
8.	Is Fedora any more difficult to use than other distributions for WarDriving?
9.	What is the most common issue with using Fedora for WarDriving?
10.	Is there someplace I can go to discuss Kismet with other Kismet users?

Answers

1.	According to the Kismet Web site (www.kismetwireless.net), the following cards and chipsets are supported: Cisco Aironet 340 Aironet 350 Prism 2 Linksys D-Link Zoom Demarctech Microsoft Many others ORiNOCO Lucent ORiNOCO-based cards such as the WaveLAN Airport AIRPORT Airport cards under Mac OS X using the Viha drivers ACX100 Dlink 650+
2.	Yes. Kismet will work on Linux, BSD-based systems, Mac OS X, and can even be used on Windows systems using Cygwin.
3.	Yes. Using WarGlue (www.lostboxen.net/warglue/), you can convert your Kismet logs to NetStumbler format and then export it to Summary for use with Stumbverter.
4.	Hewlett Packard or Compaq iPAQs that have been set up to dual boot Linux can run Kismet. Also, the Sharp Zaurus runs a modified Linux kernel and there are Kismet packages available that will work with it.
5.	There are several answers to this question. First, in order to gain a true statistical analysis of wireless networks that are currently deployed, you need to find all of them, not just those that are broadcasting SSID. Second, many security professionals or network administrators can use Kismet to detect rogue access points that have been placed on their network in stealth mode. If they only relied on NetStumbler or other active scanners, they wouldn’t be aware of these rogue access points that could provide an unauthorized entry point into their network.
6.	At its most basic, an active scanner sends out a request beacon “asking” if there are any wireless networks in range. If an access point is configured to respond to these beacons, the access point is discovered. A passive scanner doesn’t transmit any traffic. It simply “listens” for any traffic that is being broadcast. If this traffic is present, a passive scanner has discovered the access point.
7.	Kismet is primarily a Linux program. Currently, very few 802.11g card manufacturers provide Linux drivers for their cards. Without a driver, and the ability to place the card in monitor mode, Kismet will not work.
8.	Actually, no it’s not. The key is knowing how to get the computer loaded and configured correctly from the start. If you’ve been using another distribution of Linux up to this point, you may run into the normal problems associated with changing your operating system.
9.	The biggest issue is the installation process of the operating system itself. Fedora gives you multiple options for installing the operating system. We recommend that, unless you’re a veteran user of Fedora, you do a full installation so that all the right components are in place. This will save you a lot of hassle when you’re installing the wireless network drivers and Kismet.
10.	Yes, the Kismet Forums (www.kismetwireless.net/forum.php) are a collection of discussion areas for Kismet users. You can also subscribe to the Kismet mailing list by sending an e-mail to [e-mail]. There is also a lot of Kismet discussion on the WarDriving mailing list. To subscribe, go to http://mailsrv.dis.org/mailman/listinfo/wardriving.

---