[rescue] Re: scrap sparcbook

Sheldon T. Hall shel at cmhcsys.com
Wed Nov 10 23:32:39 CST 2004


 Mike Parson writes ...

> Odd thing, when I connect to another box on my net from the Sparcbook
> over the wireless, it shows my connection as coming from the AP's IP,
> not the SB's.  I don't know how normal that is, this is my first real
> playing with wifi stuff.

My APs don't do that, but I expect it's a setting you can change.  If the AP
is doing NAT and handing out IP addresses to its wireless clients, I expect
you'd see what you're seeing.

I have mine set to be as transparent as possible, and let my regular DHCP
server hand out both wireless and wired IP addresses.  I was able to do that
with my cheap first-generation (and very early production) Engenius units,
and I've done it on all the ones I've used since they died.

WiFi is pretty insecure, even with WEP, but you can make it Just Too Much
Trouble To Hack if you ...

	use MAC filtering
	use WEP
	use a non-default SSID
	disable SSID broadcasting

I also assign specific IP addresses to all my known clients' MAC addresses
in the DHCP tables, and put them in a range different from the range used
for "guest" DHCP assignments.  That way, if a "guest" IP address gets
assigned unexpectedly, it can result in administrative alerts.

Of course, anyone with the right software can sniff the WiFi traffic and
spoof a valid MAC address; you don't think those slackers at the airport are
actually _paying_ Laptop Lane, do you?

-Shel



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