From owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 14 18:20:28 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CFA0616A4CE for ; Wed, 14 Apr 2004 18:20:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from uhura.concentric.net (uhura.concentric.net [206.173.118.93]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6649643D3F for ; Wed, 14 Apr 2004 18:20:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from scott@igc.org) Received: from sandino.dnsalias.org (mail.benetech.org [207.88.38.30] (may be forged)) by uhura.concentric.net [Concentric SMTP Relay 1.1] id i3F1KOa12536 ; Wed, 14 Apr 2004 21:20:24 -0400 (EDT) Errors-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Scott Weikart To: richard childers / kg6hac , Wilko Bulte Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 18:20:23 -0700 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] References: <407D7323.50001@pacbell.net> <20040414202039.GA1217@freebie.xs4all.nl> <407DE084.5000104@pacbell.net> In-Reply-To: <407DE084.5000104@pacbell.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <04041418202302.02486@sandino.dnsalias.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Hams Report 85-mile 802.11b File Transfers @ Oregon X-BeenThere: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Mobile computing with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 01:20:28 -0000 On Wednesday 14 April 2004 6:08 pm, richard childers / kg6hac wrote: > Put another way, the area equals pi times the radius, squared ... so the > number of people who have the theoretical opportunity to passively crack > your wireless network increases, dramatically, with each increment of > distance from the center. True. > You can pack an awful lot of people into a circle with a radius of 85 miles > ... that's 170 miles, diametrically. Probably irrelevant. We're still presuming that 85 miles only worked because two directional antennas were aimed at each other. When you're trying to snoop a mostly-omnidirectional antenna, your relevant radius is much smaller. [NOTE: I still wouldn't advocate that anyone rely on WEP, and I'm not sure LEAP can be relied on either; and WPA needs good keys.] -scott > >On Wed, Apr 14, 2004 at 01:05:04PM -0700, Scott Weikart wrote: > > > >Well, I recently tried an old 25" satellite dish and a biquad feeder > >and we easily 'saw' APs at 3-4 miles away. Without trying anything fancy. > >You need line of sight to the AP in most cases. Hills help. > > > >>I would assume the hams used directional antennas on both ends, and > >>carefully pointed the antennas at each other. > >> > >>So, this may have little relevance to monitoring people's > >>mostly-omnidirectional wireless LANs. Well, maybe you could so some > >>math to make the ham's numbers scale, but I would guess there are > >>more direct methods to measure/compute risk. > >> > >>-scott