Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

The title of this week’s Wireless LAN Weekly episode comes from an article I read in the New York Times back in 1993. It seems the New York city parks department was having a bit of trouble with some overly rambunctious male youths terrorizing some of their female counterparts in the local swimming pools. They had started a trend of ‘whirlpooling’ by circling and taunting the girls in the pool.

To counteract this bad behavior, the mayor’s office came out with a marketing campaign targeted at the miscreants attempting to illicit better behavior. They made up posters, bumper stickers, and even had the mayor start wearing buttons that stated, “Don’t Diss Your Sis”.

In this episode we’ll be talking about Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems running amok, causing harm to your own wireless network. Thus, “Don’t DoS Your Boss”.

Hopefully some of these stories will ring true, and you can learn from these mistakes others have already made.

Enjoy

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

This should have a sub-title called:

“Here Be Dragons” – sometimes I think people selling legacy WiFi equipment are like map sellers today trying to hawk their wares by selling maps showing dragons and the world as flat!

This week is sure to cause some controversy, but hey – that’s what these kind of things are all about. Something to get other Wireless LAN Professionals talking.

The show notes are in the form of a new white paper on this subject.

Buying Legacy WiFi

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

Apple Products as WLAN Professional Tools

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

OK, I know… everyone is going to think I’m just sort of Apple Fan Boy. And perhaps that is true. Not that I think Apple does everything right, far from it. But I have learned to appreciate the elegance in their design simplicity.

I like not having to do the dreaded “Backup, FDISK, Format, Load OS, Re-load Apps, reload data” thing every six months or so.

I like not having to deal with viruses and malware on my working machines.

I like the speed and simplicity of moving to a new laptop – mere minutes of my time, not the full-day it used to take in a Windows platform.

I like the ability to quickly move installed apps between machines without resorting to registry edits, and having to re-install from the original disks. (I know they are here somewhere…)

But most of all. I like this these products “just work”.

I also know many of you are hard core into the CLI world, and LIKE to do things your own way, and it rubs you wrong to HAVE TO do things (like iTunes) Apple’s way.

All that being said, this podcast is about how I use Apple products, like an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook laptops to help me in my work as a Wireless LAN Professional.

Let’s start with the biggest, and move to the smaller options

READ MORE

Here’s a video I put together that shows the equipment I take on consulting gigs. It might give you some ideas of things you might want to add to your holiday shopping lists.

Keith

What’s in My WLAN Toolkit Case

WLAN Hardware & Software Options

I thought perhaps with this being the holiday season, and people thinking of their gift lists… I ought to have an episode dedicated to the various WLAN hardware and software tools you might want to have in your own personal kit.

I tried making an audio podcast out of this list… but failed to adequately describe all the items with just my voice… So this week’s audio podcast will be turned into a Video Podcast. But, it will take a bit more time to edit the video clips into something presentable.

In the mean time, I’ve included a list of the equipment and software I carry. Obviously I don’t carry all of this for every type of gig. For pre-deployment work there is one set, for post-deployment verification surveys a different set. For different training classes, different sets depending on needs. And when doing interviews and on-site work for the Podcast an even different setup.

Please go through these lists and let me know if there are any tools you’ve found useful in your Wireless LAN Professional work that I should include. Please e-mail your updates/changes/answers to keith at wlanpros.com.

Thanks – and I’ll send out a Twitter message when the Video Version of this episode is ready to download.

The *-asterisk denotes my personal favorites and what I use most of the time.

Hardware

Computer

• Windows XP/Vista/*Window 7  –  Laptop/Netbook/*Tablet
• *Macintosh OS X/VM/*Parallels/*Bootcamp  –  *MacBookPro, *MacBookAir
• Smartphone  –  *iPhone, Android, BlackBerry

Accessories

• *Fluke AirCheck
• *GPS
• *Spectrum Analyzers
• WiFi NICs – both PCMCIA & USB
• Jammers
• *USB to Serial Converters
• USB Hubs
• Cases – I favor Pelican Cases

Miscellaneous Supporting Software & Security Software

• *MapPoint, *GoogleEarth, *Visio, *Office Tools
• Senao/Prism – Queensland Attack – WiFi Jamming
• *NirSoft  – WirelessKeyView – WEP & WPA PSK Hacking
• *Immunity – SILICAU – Penetration Testing
• *Franson – GPS Gate

Software

WiFi Analysis Software

• *AirMagnet    WiFi Analyzer Pro
• *AirMagnet    VoFi Analyzer
• WildPackets    Omnipeek
• *CACE Tech    Wireshark
• CACE Tech      WiFi Pilot
• Tamosoft        Commview for WiFi
• AirDefense     Personal

WiFi Site Survey

• *AirMagnet    SurveyPro
• Ekahau           Site Survey
• Tamosoft        Tamograph
• Visiwave         Survey
• Veriwave        Wave Deploy

WiFi Pre-Deployment Design Tools

• *AirMagnet    Planner
• Motorola        LANPlanner
• Ekahau           Survey

WiFi Scanners

• Kismet             Kismet
• NetStumbler  NetStumbler
• Xirrus              WiFi Inspector
• *MetaGeek     inSSIDer
• PassMark        WirelessMon
• *NirSoft          WirelessNetView
• *Koingo           AirRadar (Mac OS X)
• iStumbler        iStumbler (Mac OS X)
• WLAN Book    WiFi Scanner (Mac OS X)

Spectrum Analyzers

• Metageek       Chanalyzer (WiSpy family)
• *Metageek     Chanalyzer Pro (WiSpy family)
• Eakiu               Eakiu (WiSpy for OS X)
• *AirMagnet    Spectrum XT – USB – Bandspeed
• *Cognio          Spectrum Expert – PCMCIA (Cisco, AirMagnet, others)
• Ubiquiti          AirView
• AirMagnet      AirMedic – Intel 5×00 series WLAN NIC
• Nuts About Nets        AirSleuthPro
• Nuts About Nets        WiFi Eagle

2.4GHz and 5GHz RF Interfering Devices

• *Nuts About Nets      AirHorn Jammer
• *Nuts About Nets      AirHorn Dual-Band Jammer
• Portable Phones        2.4GHz Narrow-band and Frequency Hopping
• Portable Phones       5GHz Narrow-band and Frequency Hopping
• *Wireless Cameras – Jamming
• *Narrow-Band Jammer
• *Wide-Band Jammer
• *Bluetooth Devices – Discovery & Piconet
• *Headset, mouse, keyboard
• *2.4GHz Wireless Mice
• WiFi Video Camera – just as a client
• Old 802.11 Frequency Hopping AP & Client
• Microwave Oven – good and bad
• Nintendo DS (WiFi Client)
• Xbox 360 Game Controller

We’d love to have you subscribe to our RSS feed – just click the button in the upper right corner of the web page. Until next week, thanks for listening!

If you have any feedback on the show – please drop an e-mail to feedback@WirelessLANProfessionals.com.

Subscribe To The Wireless LAN Weekly Podcast:

Quick and Dirty 802.11n Design

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

I’ve been teaching about 802.11n for many years now. All about the new acronyms, technology at the hardware layer, PHY layer and MAC layer. There is so much to learn about this new protocol. But invariably the discussion leads to the question on how to design for .11n.

I was going to also talk about the ‘morality’ of designing and selling a Legacy Access Point solution in today’s market, when .11n APs are available and you KNOW they are better than any Legacy AP ever could be. But I’ll leave that discussion for a different episode.

There is the very long, technical and perhaps a bit boring answer. Or, as I’ve found after sharing this with hundreds of individuals, there is the “Quick and Dirty” method. This is NOT the best way to design for .11n. But it is a way that is very quick, simple, and provides the 80 in the 80/20 rule.

If you have lots of money, plenty of time, and want to over architect your Wireless LAN – there are much more sophisticated models. This isn’t the answer to all possible scenarios. Remember, it’s the “Quick and Dirty” method – so “don’t be hating” on this…

Well, here goes.
READ MORE

Wireless LAN Penetration Testing

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

In this episode I spend some time with Mark Wuergler of Immunity Inc. talking about their SILICA-U Wireless LAN Pentration testign utilitiy. It is quite simple to use, single click kind of thing, and runs from a custom USB stick.

I think you’ll enjoy our conversation!

You can find Mark at immunityinc dot com.
READ MORE

Wireless LAN Value Added Reseller and Troubleshooting Story

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-Click Here To Download This Episode

This week’s episode features two segments, each an interview with a Wireless LAN Professional. First is Jared Griffith of CinergyWiFi, a Wireless LAN Value Added Reseller (WLAN VAR) – and the second is a story about troubleshooting from Tim Dennehy of the University of Kansas.

Both of these interviews were an attempt to help share a little insight into the wide variety of positions available for Wireless LAN Professionals.

READ MORE