Sniff Wi-Fi

I am working on an online video project, so I want to test out some videos.  Here's a two minute video on capturing WiFi in Mac OS X.

I am going to try a Reddit AMA. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1oguh2/im_a_wifi_expert_ask_me_anything/

It's Columbus Day!  A holiday that many of us heard of, a few of us object to and some of us don't get the day off for.  Let's call it a half-holiday. Yours truly is going to celebrate the day by celebrating one of my favorite sniffers, Fluke AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer.  Due to it being half-holiday, this will be a half-efforted blog post.  So no links and no graphics.  Just a little talk about my favorite part of that fine sniffer. AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer from Fluke Networks has been around for a long, long time (at least in WiFi years) and it continues to be one of the top WiFi sniffing options available.  I probably like WildPackets OmniPeek a little bit more because of its ease in manipulating frame traces, but AirMagnet (as I'll call Fluke AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer from here on out) has long been the best option for solving the vast majority of in-the-field WiFi problems. Last week I got to introduce AirMagnet to a few folks and it struck me that eve...

It's a rough world out there, folks.  The economy stinks (or, is great if you live in western North Dakota), finding love is harder than ever (or, easier than ever if you use online dating) and WiFi bandwidth is scarce (or, plentiful if you use the 5 GHz band).  Into this quagmire wades the Google Chromecast.  A cheap ($35 USD), little (about the size of an e-cigarette case) gadget that allows you to mirror your smartphone/tablet/computer screen to your television.  If you want to feel like a member of the 1% (at least, the top 1% of WiFi spectrum consumers), this is the gadget for you. Reviews, tutorials and takes on Google's Chromecast are plentiful, so let's skip that.  On this blog we don't care whether people like the gadget.  We care about what the gadget does to the WiFi.  Does it suck up bandwidth?  Is it chatty during down times?  Does it interfere with existing networks? Let's take the first question last ( Charles Van Doren v...

The iPhone 5 is a chatty device.  How chatty?  I checked, and it is chattier than I thought. Yours truly has done more WiFi sniffing of iPhones than yours truly cares to recount.  What has always stood out about these captures is the amount of chatter than an iPhone seems to engage in. I did a little test of my unlocked iPhone 5 to see exactly how chatty it was.  The test involved me turning on the phone's screen, spending a second looking at iMessage (which happened to be the last app I was on when the screen was turned off), pressing the Home button, opening the Twitter app (because, after all, if you're not on Twitter these days then you're not wasting your time properly) and refreshing my Twitter feed. The test took about fifteen seconds.  My capture saw WiFi frames going to or from my phone for about 17.64 seconds (rounded up to 18 for the purposes of a catchier blog post title).  Here is what it looked like: The good news is that my phone...

Fear not your sniffers, dear WiFi folk.  For they are your path to the truth. I had a conference call today and the topic of carrier devices (smartphones, 3G/4G enabled tablets, etc.) on Wi-Fi networks came up.  The person on the other end needed to make sure that his WiFi devices were optimized for a variety of different WLAN infrastructures. My first reaction (as is my first reaction to most WiFi related topics) was to sniff.  First set up the infrastructure.  Then use the device (which could mean connecting, roaming or running an app).  Then sniff what's happening.   His reaction to my sniffing idea was pretty negative.  Their testing procedures are basically trial & error.  Set up the WLAN, then connect the device and then document what the user experience is.  If the user experience stinks, then make a change.  He was a sniffophobe. I get why people are sniffophobes.  WiFi sniffers can be expensive and diffi...

A bunch of WiFi vendors made presentations at the Wireless Field Day events a couple of weeks ago, and the one that piqued my interest the most (at least in a positive way) was WildPackets'.  The WildPackets OmniPeek software can now sniff 802.11ac traffic, with a catch.  The catch?  It only sniffs single streams 802.11ac traffic.  Is that a useful thing? First things, first: In order to sniff 802.11ac traffic, you need a AE6000 (Linksys Wireless Mini USB Adapter AC 580 Dual Band)  adapter.  (And if you decide to buy one and want to support this blog, you can use that link to Amazon.) The AE6000 adapter is a single stream 802.11ac adapter with a Ralink chipset.  WildPackets is developing a driver for the Ralink chipset and demonstrated the AE6000 in action.  The expectation is that it will be a month or two before the OmniPeek drivers for the AE6000 actually get released, but I bought one so that I'm ready. Being able to sniff 802.11ac tr...