RE: [Ethereal-users] Sniffing 801.11 packets

["Ow Mun Heng" <ow.mun.heng@xxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Guy Harris [mailto:guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> If you were using the Orinoco drivers when sniffing was 
> working a month
> ago, and it stopped working after you changed to the hostap drivers,
> that could be the problem - it might be that promiscuous mode 
> works with
> the Orinoco drivers but not with the hostap drivers.  If so, 
> you should
> definitely tell the hostap list about it.

I did.. No reply till now


> 
> > Although I'm not sure if sniffing is only limited to the 
> channel which I am
> > on.
> 
> I'm not a radio expert, but I think that an 802.11 device can only
> receive on one channel - the manual for Sniffer Wireless 
> indicates thatit implements a "channel surfing" mode, but in that mode it
appears to listen on a given channel for some number of seconds, and 
> then switch to
> the next enabled channel and listen on that for some number 
> of seconds,

I changed to hostap due to the above actually. They "I-net ppl" were saying
better support and that kind of stuffs so I gave it a go. My experience has
not been good using it. 



> 
> > I only wanted to verify that it's not because there's some 
> new advances in wifi tech that stops sniffing.
> 
> I don't know of any.  (Perhaps some future form of 802.11 
> might use, for example, channel hopping with a pseudo-random pattern
generated from a key that two hosts share in some fashion that prevents a
third party from getting the key, e.g. some form of public-key encryption,
so that
> a third party won't be able to follow the conversation 

That.. I think wouldn't be long coming.

Thanks