It Was Only Harmless Fun...

It Was Only Harmless Fun

That next Monday, Saul left school early and took a bus downtown to the area surrounding the hospital. He had packed his iPaq and a few other items in order to do some quick recon of the area to see what he could pick up. He wanted to be light on his feet and not really draw attention to himself so he left the laptop at home. The hospital was in the middle of a large plaza with shops surrounding the front of it. It was always a popular hangout for kids who liked to skateboard, so he could easily meander around the complex without looking overly suspicious.

As he sat on the bus, he reflected on the items he had decided to bring with him for this little adventure. When he warwalked like this, he preferred to use his iPaq because it was small and would easily fit into his backpack or jacket pocket. He also used the PC card expansion pack for the iPaq so he could use the more effective 802.11b WiFi card with the Hermes chipset. This also had the extra benefit of allowing an external antenna to be plugged into it. Attached to the antenna plug on the wireless card was a small 5dbi omni antenna with a shortened cable, thus extending the range of Saul s surveillance. The final piece was a GPS puck with the appropriate serial cable. The puck was much less conspicuous than a normal handheld GPS device with a liquid crystal display. Although he couldn t really monitor the output from the GPS device in real time, he knew that the cable connecting the antenna to the iPaq would transmit location data continuously and enable him to track the exact locations of each wireless signal.

Saul was using MiniStumbler for the iPaq. The output of the tool could be dumped into one of several scripts that he had written to draw maps of the area and display the propagation of the wireless signals. Saul knew that signals tend to bounce off various buildings in the area and wanted to know exactly where those signals could be intercepted. In fact, he had seen wireless signals bounce around in between buildings and be detectable several blocks away, so he was excited to see how the maps turned out for this work.

As he stepped off of the bus, Saul considered the personal risk he could be taking.

Technically, this was not illegal. He didn t intend to connect to any networks, he was just checking it out to see how far the signals extended from the hospital and to listen to the packets and see how tough the key would be to break. But the local authorities were technophobes and assumed that any activity like this was a crime. He has seen his friends in hot water with the local authorities for similar activities, which was part of the reason he was using the small kit today. But if things got rough he still had proof that he was asked to do this.

Saul walked from the bus stop to the plaza near the hospital. There were plenty of people out today, shopping or eating at the cafes. He stopped in front of a large fountain in the plaza and took the iPaq from the bag that was already connected to the required cables. He had turned on the GPS puck when he left the house. He didn t want to draw excessive attention to himself by taking it out of his backpack in front of the hospital. Grinning to himself, he switched on the iPaq, started MiniStumbler, and slipped it back into his pocket.

iPaq / GPS Puck / Orinoco WiFi Card

As he started walking across the complex, he began thinking about his set up. His iPaq was an older model, which he bought from a friend at school who had upgraded about a year ago. It certainly wasn t the best, but it was all he needed for wardriving. The PC card was an older chipset that was heavily supported in both the Windows and Linux software communities. His iPaq even had built-in drivers for the card, making it even easier to use.

Saul s iPaq Warwalking Kit

Some of his friends had argued with Saul that he didn t need a card with an external antenna plug, but he thought differently. To truly understand the range a network has, you have to be able to really capture the signal. Besides, the antenna that was now stuffed in a side pocket of his backpack was lightweight, small, and unobtrusive . If he could improve his tracking of wireless networks just by having the right card, it was worth it.

Saul walked around the complex for about half an hour and then headed to a nearby outdoor caf to sit and relax while doing the next part of his mission. I need to collect some packets off the network, Saul thought to himself. If there are key packets being transmitted, I need to know how many per hour in order to estimate the amount of time it would take to crack their key. Saul was amazed that he was actually getting paid the kind of money he was to sit here and eat lunch , doing something he enjoyed so much. The waitress came by, took Saul s order, and then disappeared back into the restaurant.