Configuration of the D-Link DWA-125 in Managed Mode

This post will show you how to configure the D-Link DWA-125 wireless USB adapter in managed mode.

From the menu Preferences, open the Network Connections tool.

Using the button Add, create one entry for the interface. There are two entries in this example, Wireless connection 1 and 2.

Under the tab Wireless, enter the SSID of your network. The Infrastructure mode must be selected. You also need to enter the MAC address of the adapter (can be obtained from the label on the back of the adapter or using the Linux command ifconfig).

Under the tab  IPv4 Settings, select the Automatic (DHCP) Method.

Under the tab Wireless Security, select the security protocol and enter the parameters specific to your network.

Several security protocols are available, as shown below.

Click the button Apply at the end. If everything goes well, the OS posts the following feedback to the user:

The Linux command iwconfig should return a result similar to this.

ra0       Ralink STA  ESSID:”useay”  Nickname:”RT2870STA”

Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:90:96:9F:26:BB

Bit Rate=54 Mb/s

RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

Encryption key:XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XX

Link Quality=100/100  Signal level:-53 dBm  Noise level:-83 dBm

Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Note that the WEP key is posted in clear and has been erased in this example.

Ad Hoc Networking an Xbox 360 and a Windows PC

This post explains how create a two-node ad hoc network consisting of an Xbox 360 console and a Windows PC.

Both need to be equipped with a wireless interface.

The network is ad hoc. No access point nor hub is required. The Xbox 360 and Windows PC communicate using a direct multipoint wireless link.

We first look at the network configuration of the Xbox 360. The network settings on the Xbox 360 must be edited with a manually assigned IP address. Through the sequence of menus System Settings and Network Settings, you configure the network such that the Basic Settings appear as follows:

The IP Settings are Manual. The IP address is set to 192.0.0.1 and network mask to 255.255.255.0. Of high importance are the parameters Wireless Mode (801.11g), Network Name (mynet), Network Type (Ad Hoc) and Wireless Security (No Security). The values must match the ones assigned to the corresponding parameters on the Windows PC, except for the IP address. We assign 192.0.0.2 on the PC.

When associated to the Xbox 360, the network “mynet” should show as connected.

Over the ad hoc network, the Windows PC can share media with the Xbox 360. The last step consists of configuring a media sharing application on Windows. Media sharing has to be enabled. Windows Media Player has this capability. If a firewall is running on the Windows PC, network sharing must be enabled.

Then, the Xbox 360 must be granted access in the media sharing application.

Videos are streamed from the Windows PC to the Xbox 360. The facility is accessible from the My Xbox Video Library panel. Through the Windows PC association, the Xbox 360 pulls and plays video streams.

D-Link DWA-125 on Linux Ubuntu 10.04

This post will show you how to install the D-Link DWA-125 Wireless USB adapter on Linux Ubuntu 10.04 in the VMware environment.

All the software that you need to achieve the installation is available here.

Firstly, as shown in the following video, you need to install Linux Ubuntu on VMware. You need the file ubuntu1004-vmt.zip. Uncompress it in some directory. Under VMware, open the file named Ubuntu.vmx, from the uncompressed directory.

The default user is “user”. The password for  both “user” and “root” is “password”.

Download and uncompress the file that contains the driver for the DWA-125: DPO_RT3070_LinuxSTA_V2.3.0.4_20100604.tar.bz2.

The following video shows how to install the driver for the DWA-125. In summary, you have to “cd” to the directory where the driver has been uncompressed. Using the Linux command “su”, you switch user to root mode. Then you enter “make” to compile the driver. You need to create the system directory “/etc/Wireless”, where you copy the file “RT2870STA.dat”. Finally, you “cd” to “os/linux” and install the driver as a module using the Linux command “insmod”.

You are now ready to start using the driver. On VMware, Ubuntu needs to be explicitly connected to the D-Link DWA-125 USB adapter as shown in the following video.

After a few seconds, the DWA-125 USB adapter starts blinking, showing normal operation. The Linux command “iwconfig” can be used to inspect and change the configuration of the interface to the adapter.

Good luck!

KoreK Chopchop Attack on WEP Metworks

This is another nice surprise I got from students in the course COMP 4203 – Wireless Networks and Security (Winter 2010). This video was produced by the team Chris Whiten and Matthew Ng. It presents in details all the steps of a clever attack on WEP networks named Korek Chopchop.

Congratulations Chris and Matthew!

Wireless Network Site Survey

Winter 2010, I taught again the course COMP 4203 – Wireless Networks and Security. I have to admit that I had exceptional students in the class. This post is about a project, realized by the team  Michael Nemat and Nicholas Osborne, that I found really interesting. They have completed a wireless network site survey for the downtown area and a residential area of Ottawa. The number of sites that were surveyed is striking. For the downtown area, 1383 networks were found. Here is a Google map of downtown Ottawa showing positions of found wireless network sites.

They generated statistics:

It is interesting to note that in the downtown area, 46% of the networks use no encryption or WEP. In the residential area, 51% of the networks use no encryption or WEP. It is well established that WEP is insecure and that wireless WEP networks expose their traffic to high risk of eavesdropping.

You can read their full report here.

Thanks Michael and Nicholas for making me read good stuff!

WiFi/802.11 Outdoors Experiment

This is a wireless outdoors experiment that we conducted on October 8, 2008. It involved five WiFi/802.11 nodes. Dr. Paul Boone, Mr. Eldai El Sayr and Dr. Christine Laurendeau were participating at the experiment. Paul, Eldai and Christine were all graduate students at the time of the experiment, conducted in a parking lot at Carleton University.

The purpose of the experiment was to validate simulation results and further evaluate the suitability of the Hyperbolic Position Bounding (HPB) algorithm for localizing a rogue transmitter. The HPB algorithm is part of Christine’s thesis. Eldai also wrote his thesis on the topic. We compared the performance of HPB on the experimental RSS values with prior simulation results.

The simulation comprises one transmitter and four receivers. This is Paul configuring one of the receivers hidden in a box. The node is powered by Christine’s home generator.

We set up four fixed desktop receivers, each equipped with a Trendnet network interface card, enabling access to the RSS values of received packets. This is a another node mounted in my car. Note the cable running from an inverter connected to the car battery powering the computer and the ground marked with direction and distance to transmitter.

A laptop is configured as a mobile transmitter, broadcasting packets with a transmitting power of 17 dBm using an antenna with a 7 dBi gain. This is Eldai making final adjustments to the transmitter’s antenna.

Each receiver is equipped with a 7 dBi gain antenna, the total EIRP is 31 dBm. This is Christine starting the packet capture software on one of the four receivers.

The transmitter broadcasted from several separate locations. The distances from the transmitter locations to each receiver are recorded in order to plot the path loss parameters. This is me waiting for the computer to reboot.

The transmitter antenna is situated at 1.5 m above ground and the receiver antennas at 2.5 m. This is Paul and Christine making sure we went through all the steps of the experiments planned for the day.