I almost passed over this one, since it’s another cantenna. With the software the Adrian wrote, it’s a fully functional directional wifi scanner. The system can pan and scan a region and visualize the results. Scan resolution can be varied, similar to a regular image scanner. It’s built from a pair of stepper motors ,a PIC on a SIMM stick with a serial interface.
[ronobvious] purchased a Ralink based USB WiFi adapter for use with Aircrack-ng. It worked well so he decided to add an external antenna connector. The connector from Linx Technologies that he chose is really what makes this installation clean. It’s a card-edge design so you just slip it over the end and solder the pin and ground leg. He’s got a link to Tobias Hain’s similar mod and Tobias has a link to a another antenna project as well.
With FON now selling their “social routers” for $5 a piece it seems like a good time to mention Hack-A-Day reader [Steve Anderson]’s previous FON hacking experience. By purchasing one of FON’s subsidized routers you agree to participate in their network for at least one year. Steve had a look at the patched OpenWRT firmware FON uses and found the heartbeat system they use to monitor compliance. He then swapped out the firmware and spoofed the heartbeat with a cron job. This hack is an ethical trade off: remove FON’s firmware and violate their terms of service or keep FON’s firmware which probably violates your ISP’s TOS. In related WRT54G news: you can now flash Linux onto v5 and v6 routers without hardware modification. So if you’re at all worried, just buy one for the regular price off the shelf.
[thanks bird603568 and fucter]
[Coreyfro] recently sent me a thank you note for the biquad wifi antenna article I did for Engadget last fall. He directed me to his monster Beerquad antenna he built based on it. While searching for materials to build his antenna he discovered that flattened Guinness cans are the perfect size for regular antennas and that 25oz Labatt cans make for great double wide versions. He says the reception is great . I’m sure he’ll raise some OpSec eyebrows once he gets the laptop mount done. Most biquad wifi projects on the web are based on Trevor Marshall’s antenna.
WiGLE is a massive user contributed database of WiFi access points and GPS coordinates. IronGeek decided to take that data and parse it into a KML file that Google Earth can understand. It uses cached data from WiGLE’s Java interface, JiGLE. Reader [bird603568] has been playing around with the script so that it will indicate the quality of service in addition to IronGeek’s showing whether or not WEP is being used. Visit his site if your interested the QOS feature.
[UPDATE: corrected based on bird603568’s comments]
Yes. [Minh-Tam]’s addition of an external antenna to his Dell Latitude C840 is incredibly easy. We don’t remember seeing anyone else attempt this though. Minh-Tam has done it the “correct” way by using a pigtail so he should have minimal loss and get a lot more use out of his 9dB external antenna.
We saw Amal Graafstra, the author of RFID Toys, at Maker Faire. Even though we spent most of the time at his booth poking at the RFID tags embedded in his hands we did remember him mentioning that he would be releasing a free bonus chapter. The first chapter of the book shows how to connect an RFID reader to your home automation system for front door access control. The free bonus chapter describes how to build a standalone system for operating a single deadbolt. The Powerbolt deadbolt he chose makes this project pretty easy since it already has marked solder pads for open and close. A BASIC Stamp 2 is used to read the tags and operate the lock.
