Post by bottomburp on Sept 23, 2010 18:59:11 GMT 1
Stealing Wi-Fi
Ok. I'll set the scene for you.
There is a kid who often comes to stay at his grandads house on the other side of the river
and (like me) he is a bit of a computer geek.
He does not have any internet over there and when he comes to stay he often wanders
over with his laptop in order to use our Wi-Fi. He just wants to stay in touch with his mates
in Paris and spending 3 weeks without a connection is just too much for him to bear.
Anyway. having tried to make a few aerials out of tinfoil plates and coat hangers with limited
success I decided to try another solution.
Going onto ebay I picked up an aerial and usb wifi thingy for about 8 euros (delivered from China)
and set about giving it a try.
So, How am I gonna test this thing?
Well, on our terrace, and inside the drawing room/cinema/summer room thing we have one of
three wireless access points cunningly named 'terrace'.
I picked three locations to test (see picture) knowing that TEST 2 would be almost out of range
and TEST 3 would be totally out of range.
Using my trusty Asus Netbook, I sat out on the far side of the terrace and connected to the
'terrace' network and began running a test many of you will have seen before from www.speedtest.net/
Now you may have noticed that during the tests with the external (and very directional) aerial.
I have the aerial finely and precisely adjusted by balancing it on a laptop bag!
I would expect the results to be many times better at the longer distance in test 3 if the
aerial were to be mounted on a more solid support and adjusted to achieve the best signal.
I should also really be using another one of these aerials on the access point as I am told that
with a couple of aerials carefully alined you can achieve a good connection over a distance of a
couple of miles (line of sight of course)
Well if you had a really long garden or wanted to pump internet to a friends house over the fields
then this would indeed work.
Hanging this aerial out of our top floor window here at ineedaholidaytoo netted me an extra 20
wireless networks of which 4 had no security enabled
Those 4 networks ALL provided me with a usable internet connection and on one of the networks
I also nabbed a Gigabyte of MP3's out of a shared folder
(thanks for that)
Out of interest. another 4 of those networks were using 'WEP' encryption which nowdays only
takes a few mins and the right sort of wifi card to break into.
Mount this puppy onto the roof of your removal van or caravan and park up in sight of a bunch of
houses and the chances of you getting a connection are pretty good
BB
Ok. I'll set the scene for you.
There is a kid who often comes to stay at his grandads house on the other side of the river
and (like me) he is a bit of a computer geek.
He does not have any internet over there and when he comes to stay he often wanders
over with his laptop in order to use our Wi-Fi. He just wants to stay in touch with his mates
in Paris and spending 3 weeks without a connection is just too much for him to bear.
Anyway. having tried to make a few aerials out of tinfoil plates and coat hangers with limited
success I decided to try another solution.
Going onto ebay I picked up an aerial and usb wifi thingy for about 8 euros (delivered from China)
and set about giving it a try.
The kit as displayed on ebay
An aerial
A wireless-N usb stick
So, How am I gonna test this thing?
Well, on our terrace, and inside the drawing room/cinema/summer room thing we have one of
three wireless access points cunningly named 'terrace'.
I picked three locations to test (see picture) knowing that TEST 2 would be almost out of range
and TEST 3 would be totally out of range.
Using my trusty Asus Netbook, I sat out on the far side of the terrace and connected to the
'terrace' network and began running a test many of you will have seen before from www.speedtest.net/
This shows the distances between the access point and my test locations
Distances were calculated using www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm
Distances were calculated using www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm
On to the tests
Test distance 1
Using the built in aerial on the netbook I was getting good results (as you would expect)
Now, disabling the built in aerial I plugged in the external one and got a slightly better result but really not worth the effort of carrying round all the extra kit.
Test distance 2
Moving as far down the garden I could get while still having 'line of sight' to the access point.
Please note the sodding great big fig tree in the way that is in full fruit at the moment (anybody want any figs?)
wifi on the netbook is working here but it is MUCH slower as you can see
Please note the sodding great big fig tree in the way that is in full fruit at the moment (anybody want any figs?)
wifi on the netbook is working here but it is MUCH slower as you can see
Adding the external aerial restored things back to a perfect result!! Not bad eh?
Test distance 3
Ok. Now we go out the garden, down the road and over the bridge.
With the built in wifi I now have NO network to connect to and so this test is a FAIL
With the built in wifi I now have NO network to connect to and so this test is a FAIL
In with the fancy pants new aerial and hey presto, we have a connection again ;D
Conclusions? Well, I works!!
Now you may have noticed that during the tests with the external (and very directional) aerial.
I have the aerial finely and precisely adjusted by balancing it on a laptop bag!
I would expect the results to be many times better at the longer distance in test 3 if the
aerial were to be mounted on a more solid support and adjusted to achieve the best signal.
I should also really be using another one of these aerials on the access point as I am told that
with a couple of aerials carefully alined you can achieve a good connection over a distance of a
couple of miles (line of sight of course)
Potential uses?
Well if you had a really long garden or wanted to pump internet to a friends house over the fields
then this would indeed work.
So WHY did I call this thread 'Stealing Wi-Fi'?
Hanging this aerial out of our top floor window here at ineedaholidaytoo netted me an extra 20
wireless networks of which 4 had no security enabled
Those 4 networks ALL provided me with a usable internet connection and on one of the networks
I also nabbed a Gigabyte of MP3's out of a shared folder
(thanks for that)Out of interest. another 4 of those networks were using 'WEP' encryption which nowdays only
takes a few mins and the right sort of wifi card to break into.
Mount this puppy onto the roof of your removal van or caravan and park up in sight of a bunch of
houses and the chances of you getting a connection are pretty good
BB
