Spreading the Net Wide

Planned Map of Wireless Propagation

Making Plans

The next morning he woke up energized. Saul knew he now had to look at this project in an entirely new light. What Knuth was asking would most likely be illegal in his country. His only saving grace was that Knuth actually owned the hospital and had asked Saul directly to do this. But to do this work, Saul would have to be more intrusive than he had been up to this point. There were areas that would require him to investigate the hardware and to actually connect to the hospital s wireless network and collect traffic. But it was apparent from the e-mail that Knuth intended for Saul to take this to the next level. Saul was excited to be doing this legally.

To bridge the wireless network, Saul had to know for sure that the access points being used by the hospital were actually Lucent AP-1000. This would require him to walk through the medical facility looking for an access point. He hoped they were hanging on the walls out in the open where they could be seen and recognized. Saul knew that his suspicions were probably correct about this but he had to be sure.

He also realized that there were potential issues with bridging the hospital s network to extend the range. The possibility that the access points participating in the network were identified and controlled by MAC address filters had not occurred to Saul before now. The bridging within the hospital allowed a wireless user to roam from one area within the hospital grounds to another seamlessly, without losing their connection. He could always set up rogue access points outside the hospital, but this would only divert traffic from their network and Saul knew that he needed to actively participate on the hospital s wireless network. This required bridging.

The current configuration could cause serious issues for Saul because it would restrict his ability to bridge into the existing access points with his own hardware. I ll need to figure out where the primary AP is and try to log in, Saul thought to himself. If they have MAC restrictions turned on, I ll have to figure out a way to get into the AP management console and add the MAC addresses of the new access points.

Then there was the issue of housing the new APs in the local vicinity. The new hardware had to be within a reasonable distance of the existing wireless network in order for any bridging to work. He needed to figure out how to get wireless access points into the various locations around the hospital that he had chosen without appearing suspicious. Saul wondered to himself if any of the other kids in his hacking group had connections or jobs in this area and would be willing to help. I could tell them that we re setting up free Internet access around the hospital as a test project, Saul thought to himself.