Re: how to turn a pc in a wireless router without the use of drivers

On Nov 19, 5:51 am, Jeff Liebermann <je...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:16:01 -0800 (PST), backupacc...@xxxxxxxxx
wrote:


I don't understand the problem. Could you describe what you're trying
to accomplish?

Hi Jeff,

first off, thanks for all the suggestions up till now.

The problem that I am trying to solve is actually quite simple: How to
bum an internet connection off an xp or vista machine that only allows
the most basic of functions to the default user. I.e. any machine that
is controlled by a small to mid-sized company or internet cafe. As you
undoubtedly experienced, an it department tends to only give the most
basic of rights to the common domain user (locked down desktop, run
only approved apps, only http access to the net, ftp if you are
lucky, ...). As the network layers on the pc are made completely off
limits and the direct network access (i.e. plugging in of router in
the ethernet socket) is not accessible due to the use of nac or nap,
the only place to tap into the net is from the top (layer 7), i.e. the
application and use the pipe ( = other six layers) already in place .
So after a bit of thinking I came up with following scenario:

assuming that on the locked down pc :
1) you can at least run your own application that can talk with the
network stack and read from a mem stick
2) you can plug in an usb stick that looks to the usb adapter as a
default memory stick

You could try the following:
1) use something like eye-fi (http://www.eye.fi/) with an sd to usb
adapter and plug it into the machine
2) the stick would be identified as a standard memory stick
3) your own laptop would talk with the eye-fi as it was a wi-fi router
and put his tcp packets on the stick like files
4) the app. on the pc would see those files appear, pick them up and
send them over the tcp stack of the pc onto the net
5) the returning packets from the net would be put on the memory stick
like files
6) the laptop would pick up those files and find the interpret the tcp
packets

and voila, you circumvented most security systems in place and offered
free wifi from any pc with an internet connection. I admit this would
be be rather slow communication, but more than sufficient for email
and blog syncing.


As I see it, you want plug and play functionality, without any
drivers.  You can't do that with a USB port.  You might be able to do
that with Linux, which uses BTLD (boot time loadable drivers).  You
can do it with ethernet, but only if the device were totally self
contained (power, firmware, wireless client, DHCP server, firewall,
etc) and all that is required is plugging the ethernet cable into the
laptop ethernet port.  There are several portable "travel" wi-fi
routers/clients that come close.  For example, the WTR54G:
<http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_CASupport_C2&childpagena....>

I understand the need to use drivers, but if you install anything more
than a mem stick on most locked down machines you will run into
security restrictions and not be allowed to install the driver needed.
You should be fine with mem stick drivers however

Unless I'm missing something here, there is no need for the client
conencted radio to act as a router.  Routers connect two networks.  In
the typical coffee shop, there is only one network.

true, but that one network is not open to your laptop, so you need to
create a new one, based on the coffee shop one, for that you would
IMHO need a router.

There are automatic connecting wireless (software) clients available.
They do SSID scans, and try to connect to anything and everything it
finds.  My Verizon XV6700 cell phone does that.  It's an ugly, slow,
error prone, and insecure process, that methinks is a rather lousy
idea.  However, I will admit it's convenient.  If I were evil (well, I
am evil, but don't let that bother you), I could setup a virtual
access point in a coffee shop, and just wait for such clients to
connect to me.  I would then pass the traffic on to the real access
point.  This is called "man in the middle" attack, and is a common way
to sniff passwords.  It's also fairly difficult to detect unless you
know the MAC address of the real hotspot wireless access point.

the scenario I described assumes a cabled network with a pc available.
Unfortunately there still are not a lot of wifi hotspots to be found
in SE Asia (except for the bigger cities, which I like to avoid when
travelling)

Also for snooping this opens up a whole new line of
attacks.

Yes, but not new.  Man in the middle has been around for quite a
while.

again true, but just imagine what you could do if you have 1 minute
access on ANY corporate pc (inserting the usb stick + starting the
program as a service) => wireless access on network level to the whole
corporate network.

T.
.

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