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DS development > WARDRIVING ON DS

#68228 - secretrk1313 - Mon Jan 23, 2006 3:32 am

http://digg.com/security/Go_Wardriving_With_Your_Nintendo_DS_

be amazed, although i have no clue how to put it on the ds, i am simply just a person dropping by......

#68301 - Lynx - Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:30 pm

Well, it's good to see someone is on top of things..

#68312 - JaJa - Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:10 pm

<sarcasm>
zOMG HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED THIS?!??!
</sarcasm>
Seriously it's been around for months.

#68821 - Alex Atkin UK - Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:15 pm

Unfortunately the DS is not very good for wardriving as it seems to have VERY low powered WiFi.

Where my PSP CAN still see my network albeit at a low signal, the DS cannot see it at all. Im not saying the PSP could CONNECT at that signal strength, or at least when it did nothing would load but the whole point of wardriving is to pickup (but not connect to) as many SSID as possible. Therefore if the DS isnt picking things up from a distance it wouldnt seem to be a very practical unit to use.

On the other hand I was only testing within Mario Kart not using the DS homebrew WiFi driver - so perhaps it DID see my network but Nintendo deliberately does not display networks that are too weak a signal to practically use?
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#68826 - AnalogMan - Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:42 pm

Yes, it is filtered. Wheras MKDS can only pick up 2, the homebrew picks up around 13 in my living area, more if I move around. You CANNOT judge the DS's wifi strength based on official games due to their filters.

#68829 - TheChuckster - Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:18 am

I agree. I was actually impressed by my DS's ability to detect networks.

#68830 - josath - Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:18 am

yeah...MKDS picks up 6-7 for me, but sgstair's app picks up like 30-40.

#68831 - Darkflame - Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:28 am

Low powered?

No way, mine can see hundreds just walking up and down my straight, includeing one thats at least 200 meters away.
Obviously you can never have a connection like that, but I can certainly scan my area very well indeed.

#68838 - Critical_Impact - Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:17 am

Mine picked up ones with 0% strength so i'd assume they are quite far away

#68840 - Alex Atkin UK - Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:20 am

Shame neither the DS nor PSP has an external antenna port. A friend of mine got connected to a network 1.3km away using a 14dB gain antenna. And the access point was behind a metal shuttered window with just bog normal antenna.
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#68873 - Darkflame - Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:09 am

well, i suppose it would be possible to open up the ds and replace the ariel...I doubt its anything unusual.

#68884 - Mr. Picklesworth - Fri Jan 27, 2006 6:16 am

Aha! I have a neighbour with 40% signal strength.
Now all I need is the WEP.
Wee pencil to write the check for buying my own router with, silly!


Very nice app :)
_________________
Thanks!
MKDS Friend Code: 511165-679586
MP:H Friend Code: 2105 2377 6896

#68935 - Lynx - Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:06 pm

They are both useless for wardriving without GPS. I drove 20 miles on the highway and had some 362 APs on the list.. Not very usefull information if I don't know the location of the APs.

#68953 - Darkflame - Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:26 pm

Lynx wrote:
They are both useless for wardriving without GPS. I drove 20 miles on the highway and had some 362 APs on the list.. Not very usefull information if I don't know the location of the APs.


Well, it certainly makes it harder, but not impossible.

If you have a list of APs, together with time-codes for when one is recieved and lost, you can use that with your average driving/walking speed to roughly place them on your route.

I was going to convert a list of values to a gradiant in PSP, then stretch that gradiant over the road I walked down. Thought that would give an effective visual guide.
Naturely, accuracy would be lost the more you traveled, so youd have to purhapes take a manual note occasionaly of your location.
But combined with map.google.com It shouldnt be too hard :)

#69002 - HyperHacker - Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:25 pm

Why measure manually when the DS can do it for you? ;-) Download a map of the route you'll be taking into your DS, and track your average speed as you drive (just a rough look-at-the-speedometer-every-few-seconds measure ought to do, you can always come back and scan on foot to find the exact source). Once you're done, tell the DS the average speed and it can calculate, based on recieve time, where each point is on the map.

Or buy the raw components of a GPS tracker and connect them to the GBA/DS port. Someone did it with a classic Game Boy, they can do it with a DS.

#69004 - Mr. Picklesworth - Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:32 pm

Quote:
Or buy the raw components of a GPS tracker and connect them to the GBA/DS port. Someone did it with a classic Game Boy, they can do it with a DS.

It's been done:
http://www.natrium42.com/blog/?p=31
_________________
Thanks!
MKDS Friend Code: 511165-679586
MP:H Friend Code: 2105 2377 6896

#69404 - Lynx - Mon Jan 30, 2006 4:39 pm

Well, if we are going to go through all this extra work.. why not just have a co-pilot jot down street signs as you drive along and ap's pop up?

Point being, it's not easy no matter how you look at it without GPS. It's true Natrium42 has done it, but with expensive (I think it was around $90 at the time of his writing, but now is $50, so not so bad) hardware.. I just need to get off my lazy butt and get a serial passme done, so that people that already have handheld GPS receivers don't need to buy anything expensive.

#69415 - Darkflame - Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:08 pm

Or buy a gizmondo and crack it :p

(have they been cracked yet? While the management did all sorts of dodgy stuff...I am sure with GPS and a Camera you could do some fantastic homebrew augmented reality games)