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Wireless Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools
 
 
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Wireless Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools [Paperback]

Rob Flickenger (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)


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Paperback, September 23, 2003 --  

Book Description

September 23, 2003

It's an increasingly wired world, but many people are finding that the best way to get connected is to do away with wires entirely. From cable replacement to universal Internet connectivity, wireless technology is changing the way we connect to our machines and to each other.

As with any new technology, buying your gear is only the first step. Understanding how to make the best use of it is another story. Wireless Hacks offers 100 industrial-strength tips about wireless networking, contributed by experts who apply what they know in the real world every day. Each Hack can be read in just a few minutes, but can save you hours of research.

Inside, you will find a wealth of useful techniques for making the most out of wireless technology, including:

  • Making sense of the alphabet soup of the 802.11 standards, and understanding which technology makes sense for your solving particular problem
  • Using Bluetooth, mobile radios, mobile data networks, and other exotic methods to keep you connected, no matter where you are
  • Practical methods for detecting, analyzing, and monitoring wireless networks
  • Extending the range of your network, and making the best possible use of the available radio spectrum
  • Designing and building your own antennas
  • Engineering long distance network links that span several miles
  • Understanding the security issues of wireless networking, and protecting yourself and your users from unauthorized access and eavesdropping
Written for the intermediate to advanced wireless user, Wireless Hacks is full of direct, practical, ingenious solutions to real-world networking problems. Whether your wireless network needs to extend to the edge of your office or to the other end of town, this collection of non-obvious, "from the field" techniques will show you how to get the job done.


Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wireless Hacks is essential reading for anyone interested in pushing this technology in a highly practical manner. It really does showcase the very best tricks and tips developed by a highly active wireless community." - Linux User, December 2003 [Linux User & Developer Classic]

About the Author

Rob Flickenger has been a professional systems administrator for more than 10 years, and all around hacker for as long as he can remember. Rob enjoys spreading the good word of open networks, open standards, and ubiquitous wireless networking. His current professional project is Metrix Communication LLC, which provides wireless hardware and software that embodies the same open source principles he rants about in his books. Rob also works with the U.N. and various international organizations to bring these ideas to places where communications infrastructure is badly needed. He hopes that all of this effort is contributing toward the ultimate goal of infinite bandwidth everywhere for free. He is the author of two other O'Reilly books: Linux Server Hacks and Building Wireless Community Networks (which is in its second edition).


Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (September 23, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0596005598
  • ISBN-13: 978-0596005597
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,518,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews
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3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good book of wireless tips, May 19, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Wireless Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Paperback)
I'll have to disagree a bit with reviewer Pablo D. The book is broad and shallow, but I think it appeals to more than just the raw beginner. I found a number of tricks (hard to call them "hacks") in the book that have been useful. While many of the topics covered are simply product reviews, that information is helpful to wireless users, too.

Here's the table of contents of the book, which spells out all 100 "hacks":
Chapter 1. The Standards
1. 802.11: The Mother of All IEEE Wireless Ethernet
2. 802.11a: The Betamax of the 802.11 Family
3. 802.11b: The De Facto Standard
4. 802.11g: Like 802.11b, only Faster
5. 802.16: Long Distance Wireless Infrastructure
6. Bluetooth: Cable Replacement for Devices
7. 900 MHz: Low Speed, Better Coverage
8. CDPD, 1xRTT, and GPRS: Cellular Data Networks
9. FRS and GMRS: Super Walkie-Talkies
10. 802.1x: Port Security for Network Communications
11. HPNA and Powerline Ethernet
12. BSS Versus IBSS

Chapter 2. Bluetooth and Mobile Data
13. Remote Control OS X with a Sony Ericsson Phone
14. SMS with a Real Keyboard
15. Photo Blog Automatically with the Nokia 3650
16. Using Bluetooth with Linux
17. Bluetooth to GPRS in Linux
18. Bluetooth File Transfers in Linux
19. Controlling XMMS with Bluetooth

Chapter 3. Network Monitoring
20. Find All Available Wireless Networks
21. Network Discovery Using NetStumbler
22. Network Detection on Mac OS X
23. Detecting Networks Using Handheld PCs
24. Passive Scanning with KisMAC
25. Establishing Connectivity
26. Quickly Poll Wireless Clients with ping
27. Finding Radio Manufacturers by MAC Address
28. Rendezvous Service Advertisements in Linux
29. Advertising Arbitrary Rendezvous Services in OS X
30. "Brought to you by" Rendezvous Ad Redirector
31. Detecting Networks with Kismet
32. Running Kismet on Mac OS X
33. Link Monitoring in Linux with Wavemon
34. Historical Link State Monitoring
35. EtherPEG and DriftNet
36. Estimating Network Performance
37. Watching Traffic with tcpdump
38. Visual Traffic Analysis with Ethereal
39. Tracking 802.11 Frames in Ethereal
40. Interrogating the Network with nmap
41. Network Monitoring with ngrep
42. Running ntop for Real-Time Network Stats

Chapter 4. Hardware Hacks
43. Add-on Laptop Antennas
44. Increasing the Range of a Titanium PowerBook
45. WET11 Upgrades
46. AirPort Linux
47. Java Configurator for AirPort APs
48. Apple Software Base Station
49. Adding an Antenna to the AirPort
50. The NoCat Night Light
51. Do-It-Yourself Access Point Hardware
52. Compact Flash Hard Drive
53. Pebble
54. Tunneling: IPIP Encapsulation
55. Tunneling: GRE Encapsulation
56. Running Your Own Top-Level Domain
57. Getting Started with Host AP
58. Make Host AP a Layer 2 Bridge
59. Bridging with a Firewall
60. MAC Filtering with Host AP
61. Hermes AP
62. Microwave Cabling Guide
63. Microwave Connector Reference
64. Antenna Guide
65. Client Capability Reference Chart
66. Pigtails
67. 802.11 Hardware Suppliers
68. Home-Brew Power over Ethernet
69. Cheap but Effective Roof Mounts

Chapter 5. Do-It-Yourself Antennas
70. Deep Dish Cylindrical Parabolic Reflector
71. "Spider" Omni
72. Pringles Can Waveguide
73. Pirouette Can Waveguide
74. Primestar Dish with Waveguide Feed
75. BiQuad Feed for Primestar Dish
76. Cut Cable Omni Antenna
77. Slotted Waveguides
78. The Passive Repeater
79. Determining Antenna Gain

Chapter 6. Long Distance Links
80. Establishing Line of Sight
81. Calculating the Link Budget
82. Aligning Antennas at Long Distances
83. Slow Down to Speed Up
84. Taking Advantage of Antenna Polarization
85. Map the Wireless Landscape with NoCat Maps

Chapter 7. Wireless Security
86. Making the Best of WEP
87. Dispel the Myth of Wireless Security
88. Cracking WEP with AirSnort: The Easy Way
89. NoCatAuth Captive Portal
90. NoCatSplash and Cheshire
91. Squid Proxy over SSH
92. SSH SOCKS 4 Proxy
93. Forwarding Ports over SSH
94. Quick Logins with SSH Client Keys
95. "Turbo-Mode" SSH Logins
96. OpenSSH on Windows Using Cygwin
97. Location Support for Tunnels in OS X
98. Using vtun over SSH
99. Automatic vtund.conf Generator
100. Tracking Wireless Users with arpwatch

Appendix: Deep Dish Parabolic Reflector Template

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars For the serious wireless freak, March 6, 2004
This review is from: Wireless Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Paperback)
This is an amazing book about wireless. It's coverage of everything from the operating system level stuff, to drivers, to cards, to hacking cards, to building your own antenna, to doing shotgun wireless is just incredible. If you are a serious wireless junkie you will love this book. For the casual coffee shop surfer, this is probably not the right book, but you probably don't have any issues with wireless anyway.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars For the tinkerer in you, November 13, 2003
This review is from: Wireless Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Paperback)
An interesting amalgam of software and hardware tips. The author clearly loves to tinker, as seen by his description of how he and friends put together a waveguide antenna built around a Pringles can. Perusing the book seems to give some of the flavour of the Homebrew Computer Club in San Francisco during the 1970s, when the PC revolution was gestating.

To some (many?) of you, the do-it-yourself ethos of this book may be its greatest allure. Flickenger reinforces this with many examples of analysis programs contributed by enthusiasts, often with source code available for your modification.

If indeed you seem attracted, do not tarry. Flickenger may not explicitly state this anywhere in the book, but it really describes a field and hobby that will rapidly make much of the book obsolete. Chances are, in a few years hardware will be standardised by a few major manufacturers, and most operating systems will have all the necessary wireless software. So if you want some fun, perhaps now is the time.

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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
wireless network design, wireless tools, ubuntu linux, management utility, negative wire, positive wire, mobile agent, mesh network, wireless extensions, pistol mouse, metered plan, can waveguide, all available wireless networks, own access point, passive repeater, access point hardware, blog server, network discovery, radio cards, captive portal, omni antenna, waveguide antenna, wireless driver, sync cable, wireless card
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mobile Phones, Software Hacks, Hardware Hacks, Do-It-Yourself Antennas, Bit Rate, Fedora Core, Sony Ericsson, Bluetooth Phone, Cancel Figure, Set Up Bluetooth, Salling Clicker, Address Book, Secure Your Linux Network, Build Your Own Access Point, Control Your Computer, Slotted Waveguide Antenna, Capture Wireless Users, Connect Linux, Online Community, Primestar Dish, Run Linux, Control Your Home Theater, United States, Control Wireless Access, Compact Flash
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