I'll have to cogitate on this one a bit. That wasn't my problem but you
do have a point to be considered.
Chuck Norcutt
On 3/29/2011 1:18 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
> I recently found an interesting problem that could only be diagnosed
> with WireShark.
>
> Living in a condo, there is too much channel contention and if I get a
> room away from the WiFi router, I'm losing connection speed because of
> the overlap with the neighbors. Well, that's usually not too much of
> an issue, but here is where things got fuzzy.
>
> Let me set the stage here and kinda go generic so you can tell if you
> have a similar issue:
>
> 1. My WiFi AP was set on Channel 6. Neighbor units an 1, 6 and 11. All
> APs running security.
>
> 2. Everything is going fine, but I notice a lot of traffic on the AP
> that isn't me. The activity lights are going berzerk.
>
> 3. Firing up WireShark, I see my packets and the other packets from
> the household. But I'm also seeing packets from somebody else!!! But
> looking at the access table in the AP, there is nobody else on. But
> the IP addresses are in the same LAN space!
>
> 4. My LAN was 192.168.0.1. So was my neighbor's LAN. By having the
> same LAN running on two APs on two networks adjacent to each other,
> 100% of my packets were being relayed on not only my AP but their AP
> and vise-versa.
>
> 5. I changed my LAN to another subnet, (ie, 192.168.10.1) and that
> immediately addressed that. The activity lights quieted immediately
> AND the throughput increased back to normal levels.
>
> So, this does bring up an observation. Even though BOTH WiFi systems
> were running WPA, using WireShark, which is a packet-sniffer, I was
> able to see the packets from their network. I couldn't access the
> Internet through their network, but I could see every website and
> packet that flowed to/from their computers from their WiFi AP. In
> essence, by not only being on the same channel, but being in the same
> IP addresses, I was able to spoof their AP and see their information.
> Of course, this went both ways!
>
> Therefore, what I recommend is not only changing the standard settings
> of the WiFi AP from "LinkSys" or whatever it defaults to from the
> factory, but also changing the LAN from the default to some
> neighboring range.
>
> AG
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|