I have a friend who lives about 50m away from me who has a wireless network which is unencrypted. I know nothing about wireless networking. I have no cards or anything.
I want to be able to get onto this network. He has come over to my place with his laptop and proven that i can get a signal.
What software/hardware/knowledge do i need to be able to access this wireless network?
And can i hack in if needed?

YOu need a wireless network card, and if you want a decent connection, get yourself a larger antenna. Just use windows to connect, and if its unencrypted, you dont need to "hack the gibson"

Tell your friend also he is an idiot for not securing his network.

wtf? 50 m away? I can't even get a signal outside my house from my wireless router, must be all the tinfoil in the walls. (yeah there's tinfoil backed insulation in here, at least I know it's in the roof not sure about the walls). Tinfoil hats are for noobs, tinfoil house for the win :)

check out http://www.freeantennas.com/ for some ideas on how to build your own antenna if buying a big (or small) dish or dipole (or whatever they're called) doesn't suit you.

I get a connection about 60m down the road with mine! Its awesome, sitting on a friends fence playing mp3's :) What is he running ? get a pci card with a bigger antenna and see how you go with that.

I have a friend who lives about 50m away from me who has a wireless network which is unencrypted.

I found a wireless signal from some person down the road

I know nothing about wireless networking. I have no cards or anything.I want to be able to get onto this network.

I want to hack them but i dont know how so im posting on qgl and asking

He has come over to my place with his laptop and proven that i can get a signal.

If he wanted you on his network he would have told you how to, then you wouldn't need to ask on qgl

What software/hardware/knowledge do i need to be able to access this wireless network?
And can i hack in if needed?

help me qgl im a noob !

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So, if you really have a friend who is that much of a cock who wont tell you how to get in.. then there are a few scinarios

1) unencrypted, no mac filtering, auto DNS
--> Double click on the network

2) unencrypted, no mac filtering, manual DNs
--> find out his IP array and assign yourself one, work out where his gateway is at on the IP range ( usually .1)

2) unencrypted, mac filtered
---> you will see it and it will appear that you can get on but windows wont connect = you are f***ed. Solution would be to spoof your mac address with a knowen accepted mac address = steal his wireless card out of his home pc and use it in yours

3) encrypted.
--> you are f***ed. Sniff the signal for 11 days to get enough data to run your algorythim on it, then let your computer try and crack the 128 code and wait a few weeks till you get the network code

legal side. Unauthorised access into a wireless network = jail
networkstumbler is legal tho cus it only sniffs packets themselves, not the content

Tell your friend also he is an idiot for not securing his network.

i just use mac filtering, does the job eds

On the money Lowgoz

well its pretty obvious youll need a wireless network card and a big ass aerial ...

you couldnt figure that out?

go to concorde computers at newsted and talk to keith.

Get a Netgear wg311 then an extra antenna. total cost = ~200 bucks. I mean thats to say that there isn't mac filtering and you wont be f***ed.

Whats your street ? ill come for a wardrive

keith.

aka erik the red

some of us try and not call up a store and ask for "eric the red"
you get weird looks

Tell your friend also he is an idiot for not securing his network.


i just use mac filtering, does the job eds

What do you interpret Securing the network as?


DUH!

yeah i just realised, thought you meant securing against break in, not data sniffing

:P I use mac filtering over encryption as well, its easier.

cantenna okay

Those of you who believe MAC filtering is sufficient I suggest you be really careful. Granted, in the susburbs, yeah, you might be okay.

At work, we're in the middle of the city (Melbourne). Within range of where I sit on my notebook, there are 8 access points visible! 8! And we're the only one in our building (a 5 story building). There's hardly enough spectrum there to safely run that many, and consider how many I'd probably be finding with a higher gain antenna, that's kinda scary the kind of WiFi usage.

So why am I cautious of MAC filtering only? Consider that packets are still being sent unencrypted. All MAC filtering does is stops you being able to connect to that AP. It doesn't stop you listening to the packets. So consider for a second you go to some passworded site... I dunno, maybe national.com.au (pick your favorite bank), grabbing your SSL details/handshake in the process. Yeah okay, it's still encrypted, but what if it's a little less secure than that?

Suddenly not sounding so secure, is it?

I really advise you use WEP, or better yet, WPA, if you're in any kind of built up area. The problem with that is that 11mbps becomes about 3.8mbps. Danmed either way :(