Wireless Village Equipment Needs

[seramai]

Long story short:

I choose wireless!

Long story long:

When I was in seminary, there were many different courses of study. I chose Semitics and within that I chose the Book of Jonah. I wanted to be an expert on the book of Jonah--same thing with computers.

There are many choices programming, networking, web page design, etc. I choose wireless. Have I made the wrong choice? Also, I want to hang out with the Mek in the wireless village wearing my boonie hat and penis gourd. What type of equipment do I need? I don’t have much money.

I thought our high school principal was a tool and posted a ditty set to a popular hymn on the faculty mail room door saying as much, and now I am an unemployed high school English teacher/Cisco Network Academy teacher.

I have a laptop with an internal wireless card running Vista. Choosing wireless means that I have to make other choices like an appropriate OS. Linux and which version? Also, I was planning on getting an external USB wireless card (Belkin). Is there anything else I need to begin my wireless journey?

[Thorn]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

Long story short:

I choose wireless!

Long story long:

When I was in seminary, there were many different courses of study. I chose Semitics and within that I chose the Book of Jonah. I wanted to be an expert on the book of Jonah--same thing with computers.

There are many choices programming, networking, web page design, etc. I choose wireless. Have I made the wrong choice? Also, I want to hang out with the Mek in the wireless village wearing my boonie hat and penis gourd. What type of equipment do I need? I don’t have much money.

I thought our high school principal was a tool and posted a ditty set to a popular hymn on the faculty mail room door saying as much, and now I am an unemployed high school English teacher/Cisco Network Academy teacher.

I have a laptop with an internal wireless card running Vista. Choosing wireless means that I have to make other choices like an appropriate OS. Linux and which version? Also, I was planning on getting an external USB wireless card (Belkin). Is there anything else I need to begin my wireless journey?

Penis gourd? Guess those tales of the seminaries aren't exaggerated at all...

I'll warn you right off the bat, wireless gets to be expensive fast. Starting with wireless, you'll need to get some stuff to experiment with; start with a Linksys WRT54G router (most versions are very hackable; check Google), and go from there. You'll need one that you can experiment with, besides you're main home wireless.

Let me ask you in my capacity as one of the organizers of the Wireless Village: as a total newbie to wireless, what would you like to see in the DC16 Wireless Village in the way of instruction or demos?

[seramai]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

My comments interspersed.

Penis gourd? Guess those tales of the seminaries aren't exaggerated at all...


We never used those in seminary. We were going to the people who did as linguists and Bible translators.


I'll warn you right off the bat, wireless gets to be expensive fast.

Holy Sheetrock.


Starting with wireless, you'll need to get some stuff to experiment with; start with a Linksys WRT54G router (most versions are very hackable; check Google), and go from there. You'll need one that you can experiment with, besides you're main home wireless.


I have managed to install a wireless home network with my Linksys WRT300N router. I have my wireless laptop and even my PS2 as nodes on the network. I am running WPA tkip encryption, although I had to reduce the size of the encryption key because of the PS2.

Let me ask you in my capacity as one of the organizers of the Wireless Village: as a total newbie to wireless, what would you like to see in the DC16 Wireless Village in the way of instruction or demos?

Which OS should I put on the laptop? Should I bring my router?

I want to get up and under wireless. I want to understand it like Bobby Fischer understood chess, Bobby Knight basketball, or Richard Feynman physics.

I don't know what to do next to increase my understanding. I was thinking of taking the BICSI set of course on wireless, and/or even some electrical engineering classes as well. What's a fat man to do?

Is wireless the wave of the future especially as it relates to making money (installing, writing about, etc.) as an expert?

[Thorn]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

Which OS should I put on the laptop?

The best OS for wireless is the one that people "use and need." Realistically, that means you'll need to know how wireless works with Win XP and a generic Linux, plus a smattering of knowledge of Vista and MacOS.

So grab a LinuxLive CD and use that with your current laptop to get you started.

Which OS should I put on the laptop? Should I bring my router?

Assuming you are referring to the Wireless Village, you probably won't need to bring a wireless router. We tend to have a lot of them around.

I want to get up and under wireless. I want to understand it like Bobby Fischer understood chess, Bobby Knight basketball, or Richard Feynman physics.

Sorry, but Chris, Renderman, and I already have those positions.

I don't know what to do next to increase my understanding. I was thinking of taking the BICSI set of course on wireless, and/or even some electrical engineering classes as well. What's a fat man to do?

You might want to check out these books:

WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend

WarDriving and Wireless Penetration Testing

Although, they focus on WarDriving, both cover getting started in wireless and getting a laptop set up. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll tell you those were written by Chris [one of the admins here] and in small part by myself.)

This one, is also a good book on hacking the WRT54G:

Linksys WRT54G Ultimate Hacking

Is wireless the wave of the future especially as it relates to making money (installing, writing about, etc.) as an expert?

You probably won't get rich, but it's a nice niche.

[DaKahuna]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

I also recommend

Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking

[renderman]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

I also recommend

Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking

Yeah, but we don't get residuals from those sales, so Thorns list is the preferred reading

[DaKahuna]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

Yeah, but we don't get residuals from those sales, so Thorns list is the preferred reading

Sorry about that but I own all of the aforementioned books except the one on hacking the WRT54G. I have a v5 as part of my home lab and it's not worth hacking!

[seramai]

Am I ready?

I was going to purchase a Dell with Ubuntu installed, but I thought I would do better to purchase Parallels for my Vista laptop and install Ubuntu into that.

Good idea or no?

Also, the TSA will not let be bring my penis gourd. They said it might be construed as a weapon of mass reproduction. Ha!

I was given various reading assignments:

Linksys WRT54G Ultimate Hacking
WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend
WarDriving and Wireless Penetration Testing
Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking
Buy My Book: RFID Security

I purchased and read them all. In addition, I have purchase and read the Second Edition CWSP book and am getting ready to take two of their exams.--the baby one and the one above that.

Also, I have taken two BICSI wireless classes:
WD100--took their in class exam and passed
WD200--no exam, but attended all days

I was told to download and bring:
CoWF WPA-PSK lookup tables

Will do so. What program do I run to use the lookup tables?

My final question is this? Am I there yet? Is their a black Defcon speaker's badge in my future?

If not, what else do I need to do?

[renderman]

Re: Am I ready?

My final question is this? Am I there yet? Is their a black Defcon speaker's badge in my future?

If not, what else do I need to do?

Ok, your scaring me.

Black badges are hard to come by and the WV doesn't have any to give out. Speakers badges typically have been blue the last few years. Feel free to speak if you have a topic worth regaling us with.

We will be offering several impromptu classes on whatever you like, check the posted schedule in the village for topics and times. Suggestions of topics now would be of use.

As for the tables, read up on cowpatty and aircrack-ng and pre-computed tables for both. You seem capable of reading, lets see if you can educate yourself

[seramai]

Re: Am I ready?

Ok, your scaring me.


Nooooo. I'm teasing you and poking you in the ribs to prompt you to tell me more.

I know there is much more to learn. Getting that out of you is my task. Provoking you is one way, nu?



Black badges are hard to come by and the WV doesn't have any to give out. Speakers badges typically have been blue the last few years. Feel free to speak if you have a topic worth regaling us with.

We will be offering several impromptu classes on whatever you like,


I don't know enough to know what I would like and not like class wise

I would howerver like to be like you. Can you condense all your experience and wisdom down into a class or two?



check the posted schedule in the village for topics and times. Suggestions of topics now would be of use.

As for the tables, read up on cowpatty and aircrack-ng and pre-computed tables for both. You seem capable of reading, lets see if you can educate yourself

As a token of my appreciation for you and the others, I will have a book for each of you that I think you will find interesting.

[DaKahuna]

Re: Am I ready?

As a token of my appreciation for you and the others, I will have a book for each of you that I think you will find interesting.

Sounds interesting.

You might also want to check out the Backtrack Wifu course at Offensive Security . I have not taken it but I have heard some good things about the course from those that have.

Additionally, if you have a company that does not mind sending you to training, the SANS Hacking and Defending Wireless Networks couse is also said to be excellent.

DK

DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with Offensive-Security and or SANS.

[LosT]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

It doesn't matter, Defcon is canceled.


What are blackbadgers?

LosT

[Thorn]

Re: Wireless Village Equipment Needs

What are blackbadgers?

Like this, only with the optional "cyberpunk/goth black" paint job.

The iconic line, "Badgers? BADGERS?! We don' need no stinking BADGERS!" was first used in the novel "Treasures of Embedded Systems." This is a story about the three DefCon attendees (LosT, Russ & Kingpin) who first tried to run this distro. When a badger is first suggested for the first experiments, the immortal line is given as the response. Ultimately, the trio install embedded Linux on a possum. As it turns out in the story, the possum drivers were only in alpha, and the result is Doom and Gloom. Doom is now a trademark of Id Software.

[seramai]

Re: Am I ready?

Sounds interesting.

You might also want to check out the Backtrack Wifu course at Offensive Security . I have not taken it but I have heard some good things about the course from those that have.

Additionally, if you have a company that does not mind sending you to training, the SANS Hacking and Defending Wireless Networks couse is also said to be excellent.

DK

DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with Offensive-Security and or SANS.

Thank you. I will check them out.

[seramai]

Re: Am I ready?

As a token of my appreciation for you and the others, I will have a book for each of you that I think you will find interesting.

By "you," I mean Renderman, Thorn, DaKunah, and LosT.

By "book," I mean, Feynman's Rainbow.

With regards to Feynman, I first became aware of him in 1988 as I was finishing Seminary. The paperback version of his book, Surely you’re Joking Mr. Feynman, came out and I picked up a copy.

I remember reading how his memorization of log tables gave him the ability to make quick approximations of mathematical questions. I looked up log tables in an old math book, but didn’t remember how they worked, and couldn’t figure out how Feynman made them work. I will have to ask my community college math Prof. for the answer.

I could never be a Physicist, but I could read about them. My interest in these matters was due to William MacMillan, Uncle Bill. Apparently, when he was a grad student at UCLA, he scored a 17 on a theoretical math exam or some such, and as a result, impressed Einstein no end who subsequently invited him to work on the Manhattan Project. As kids, Uncle Bill would entertain us with a very humorous impression of Einstein, German accent and all.

Come to think of it, I got plenty of 17’s on math tests and even an occasional 18. The only thing I was invited to do was move along. There was nothing to see.

He accepted and went to Chicago to work on the reactor project underneath the track stands at the University of Chicago. He would later marry Dr. Teller’s secretary, Aunt Nancy.

Uncle Bill was the measure of all the males in the family—not his doing I am sure, and needless to say I didn’t measure up. 8th grade Algebra was my undoing. Apparently, in 8th grade Algebra “x” is always either 1, 0, ∞, or some fraction thereof. I never understood which, when, or under what circumstances.

In spite of my aeronautical engineering father’s attempts to tutor me, usually until three in the morning by backing me up to the wall, and lifting me a foot or two off the ground, I could never resolve the equations. X, and its value, has eluded me even to this day, and as a result, I was crossed, or rather, x’d, off the list.
I remember an episode of a ‘70s TV show in which the character, Arthur Fonzarelli, was faced with a dilemma. If he didn’t pass his English class, he would flunk out, and be forced out of high school. If he passed, he would have the choice of either staying or leaving.

As for myself, I thought that I would return to math once I have finished my MA thesis. I would take baby steps in math until I could pass Differential Calculus. Then I could take a transcript with my passing grade and place it on my father’s grave showing him that I had passed, and finally measured up.

That is my goal anyway. I hope it goes as well for me as it did the The Fonz.