Sniff Wi-Fi

Chatty smartphones have been an issue for years.  Whether you're concerned with security or performance  (or both), the amount of Probing being done by unconnected iPhones, Galaxies and the like has been worrisome.   Today, things have changed.  Smartphones don't Probe as much.  This is probably for the better, but there could be a catch. I'm an Apple guy.  Even when I was using PCs in college (things were different back in the 90's , I tell ya), it was always because they were free.  Once I finally had to buy a computer, I went straight to the very first iBook in 2001.  I own an iPod, iPad, iPhone and MacBook Air.  My next computing purchase will probably be an iMac (to better record those promised-but-not-yet-delivered online training videos on WiFi that I touted six months ago).  So, I like the company.  And I like bashing its competitors sometimes.  (Not my most magnanimous trait, but nobody's perfect.) I liked poi...

When we last left off, yours truly had noticed that an Android tablet was probing for Wi-Fi networks even when associated.  This behavior would have been unusual, as consumer-grade Wi-Fi devices historically would probe when unassociated and stop probing once a connection is made.  After a little bit more investigation, it appears there was an extenuating circumstance that was causing all of the extra probing. I wondered if the Android tablet I have (Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.0 with 65 Mbps 802.11b/g/n WiFi) might have its probing behavior affected by movement, and sure enough it does. I'll try to amend this blog post later to add screenshots of my captures, but for now here is a summary of what I saw: I associated my Galaxy Tab to a WLAN that is on channel 1.  Then I captured on channel 11.  My hypothesis is that an associated device should stop probing on other channels as long as the signal is solid. Sure enough, once I was associated on channel 1, I...

No bold type introducing today's post, as I'm going to keep things short. I was doing some work last week looking at Android devices (specifically, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2) and I noticed some very heavy probing behavior.  We were checking out the device's behavior when it moves from AP to AP, so I set a capture for the target second AP.  I did the test (things went fine, but the WiFi Analyzer app in particular seems to really make Android devices stick to their currently associated BSS) and looked at the capture. Seeing a ton of Probe Requests from the Tablet was expected.  What wasn't expected was the Android tablet probing even while associated to the first AP.  Even when the received signal was strong (in the -50 to -63 dBm range), the Android was going off channel to probe and probe excessively. At this point I'm still trying to figure out if physical motion or an app (or lack thereof) caused the probing.  One thing I am pretty confident in saying alre...

Happy (belated) Cinco de Mayo!  In honor of Mexico (whose El Tri I actually like a heck of a lot less than Les Bleus ), today's discussion of Guerra de Conduccíon has a Spanish language title.   As noted by noted sarcastor Keith R. "The R Stands for Reassociation" Parsons , in some ways wardriving is a topic whose time has passed.  We've known about it for years.  Wardriving tells hackers where your network is.  Most WiFi networks are encrypted.  What else is there?  Hackers can try to connect, but if you use a long WPA2 Personal passphrase , they won't be able to.  Hackers can try to sniff, but if you're using WPA2 Enterprise, then decryption of data frames is impossible (as far as us non-NSA employees know). But imagine you are an NSA employee.  Or the CEO of a noted defense contractor .  Or holder of some other high-profile job where the nation's prosperity is dependent on your secrecy (like USC's head football coach). ...