RE: Question about wireless lan card drivers....

["Dante Mercurio" <Dante () webcti com>]

The wpc54g card by Linksys uses a Broadcom chipset. There are numerous
complaints regarding the lack of open source support for this chipset,
and it appears unlikely the maker will release any instruction set/api.
This results in no direct support for Linux.

There is, however, a work around if you want to get this running on
Linux:
http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/
This is a wrapper that loads the Windows driver in Linux. Pretty slick,
though I haven't tried it yet.

It is unlikely there will be other operating system support unless they
directly write for it.

Hope this helps,
M. Dante Mercurio
dante () webcti com
Consulting Group Manager
Continental Technologies, Inc
www.webcti.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Wolf, Tomas [mailto:tomas () skip cz] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 11:44 PM
To: Kyle Stapp
Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Question about wireless lan card drivers....


Hello,

  Prism is a line of chips that are done by the company named 
"Intersil". But as time goes, now the "owner" of Prism technology is 
"Conexant Systems, Inc.". Such technology was used in a major way by 
makers of many wlan nics in the past. Now one can find chipsets from 
Atmel, Atheros, Orinoco and others. The search for the chipset could be 
tricky, since sometimes the chipset varies from version to version of 
the same wlan card and the maker doesn't enclose the information about 
the chipset used. So I have to say that I do not have any idea about 
your particular wlan nic (wpc54g).
  I personally use Linux-wlan-ng drivers (driver for Prism 2, 2.5, 3 
chipset cards) with 802.11b card and RL8092 pci-to-pcmcia adapter. And I

know one site and company that will provide you with Linux-friendly wlan

hardware, it is: http://www.netgate.com/ - they sell Linux compatible 
802.11b stuff (tried) and offer 802.11g that can be run with the 
mad-wifi driver that targets Atheros chipsets 
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi/). I didn't try .11g stuff yet.

So my advice would be: try to contact the vendor if they give out the 
chipset information and then go and find the driver needed. Or if you 
want to try the Host-AP drivers, Prism 2, 2.5 will be necessary - so if 
you don't have it (or it doesn't work after several sleepless nights), 
buy a card that has Prism chipset and enjoy.
My Linux flavor is Debian, under which the wlan-ng driver works very 
fine. I've tried to fly through Mandrake, but after several failures I 
have given up on that flavor in combination with wlan-ng driver.

Well, hopefully this is of some use to you. Good luck and have a good
day...

Tomas

Kyle Stapp wrote:

> Hello all,
> This is my first time posting. so here it goes...  I have been reading

> up on mac address spoofing etc for a little, and the ways to detect 
> it.  I have read about the all famous prism Host-AP pack and Fake-AP.

> I am looking for similar information for other cards.  I don't quite 
> understand if the prism is a component of the wireless card or is the 
> brand of the card itself.  I tried looking up specs for my wpc54g 
> linksys wireless notebook adapter but could not find any information 
> about the hardware components or any kind of documentation of the 
> instruction set/api for it(if one exists.  Obviously there is some way

> to access a card, given that you know what commands to use etc, and 
> alter its function just as the prism pack does.  I am wondering if it 
> is capable with other cards, specifically mine, and how I would obtain

> a copy of some detailed specs for the card(some kind of 
> api/intrusction set etc).  I would also like to know if the prism pack

> would probably work with the linksys(I doubt it, but I am very 
> beginnerish at this).  Any and all information related to this 
> topic(programming wireless lan cards) would be greatly appreciated and

> documents on the insides of a wpc54g.  Thanx for anyone who responds, 
> RabidCicada
>
>
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Ethical Hacking at the InfoSec Institute. Mention this ad and get $545 off
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to facilitate one-on-one interaction with one of our expert instructors.
Attend a course taught by an expert instructor with years of in-the-field
pen testing experience in our state of the art hacking lab. Master the skills
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