AirPcap USB Alternative

I just did some packet captures with my TRENDnet Wireless G usb using Wireshark, but I just realized it did not perform a true wireless capture according to 802.11 standard, because I needed a supported device such as AirPcap. How dare they said their USBs price ranged from $198 to $698 are affordable? Do anyone know some open-source firmware equivalent to AirPcap that I can install on my USB? There gotta be one out there. I know it. If DD-WRT can do it on Linksys router, then someone should be able to mod a wireless usb. Any helps would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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tiersten

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

How dare they said their USBs price ranged from $198 to $698 are affordable?

If you don't like it then you're welcome to buy the extremely expensive tester devices that the WiFi Alliance recommends you use for compliance testing :P

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

Do anyone know some open-source firmware equivalent to AirPcap that I can install on my USB? There gotta be one out there. I know it. If DD-WRT can do it on Linksys router, then someone should be able to mod a wireless usb.

Not sure why you think that. DD-WRT just modifies the Linux side of the router. The driver for the wireless interface is generally still a giant binary blob from the manufacturer. Unless the manufacturer releases specifications or somebody manages to reverse engineer it which will involve a very large amount of work, you're stuck with the binary blobs.

So in your case, if nobody has reverse engineered the firmware that is actually inside the USB dongle then there won't be anything which will help you. Some of them have the firmware built into the dongle itself whilst others load it in when you load their giant driver. Generally manufacturers of the dongles don't even tell you if there is a firmware update mechanism for their dongles as they never actually release any firmware updates. You'd need to extract the firmware from one first to be able to modify it.

Chris:/*

The big issue is not what device can pick up the information but what one has an API hook for the tools you are using. The time and effort to modify the proprietary firmware code and creating an API for Network Analyzers to recognize with no primer would quickly push me to buying AirPcap products.

hiddenknight821

Thanks for the info and the quick reply, guys. I guess AirPcap does offer a better deal. Does anyone here actually bought one of their products? (if you bought yours from a third-party then name them) If so, for what purpose? And if you're using it for cert study, then name them too. If it's worth it then I might consider buying the most basic one if I'm going for my CWAP, but that won't be until maybe 2 years later.

Chris:/*

I have used them but I have not personally bought one yet! If you are going to study for the CWNA, CWSP, CWAP or OSWP it can only help. In the official study guides from CWNP AirPcap and WiSpy are both used in some of the exercises.

docrice

I personally own an AirPcap TX. To work on Windows and be able to see 802.11 management and control frames makes it quite worth it, in my opinion. If you're comfortable with Linux, then that's a free option assuming you have the right chipset. BackTrack supports at least a few common chipsets including the Intel ones. Change the interface mode to monitor and fire Wireshark right up.

hiddenknight821

docrice wrote: »

I personally own an AirPcap TX. To work on Windows and be able to see 802.11 management and control frames makes it quite worth it, in my opinion. If you're comfortable with Linux, then that's a free option assuming you have the right chipset. BackTrack supports at least a few common chipsets including the Intel ones. Change the interface mode to monitor and fire Wireshark right up.

Hey thanks for the heads up. I will look into it later.

docrice

This article's a bit dated as it's been a couple of years since I wrote it, but it should get you started pretty easily, assuming you have a wireless chipset that's supported by BackTrack:

http://kimiushida.com/bitsandpieces/articles/getting_started_with_backtrack_3_for_basic_wi-fi_tracing/