[TriLUG] gpsmap experience

[Ken Mink]

Those maps are really interesting. According to the map showing your
path, you came through our parking lot. I'm not sure exactly which AP
was ours, but it was red. And here our thought our obscure location
would keep of being wardriven. Before anyone replies, I do not
subscribe to method security through obscurity. All the security
features are enabled on our AP.

Still a very interesting write up.


Ken

On 5/7/05, Michael Hrivnak <mhrivnak at triad.rr.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I've asked a lot of questions and received lots of great information from this
> group. This time I'm going to share some interesting experience using kismet
> and gpsdrive to generate maps of wifi networks.
> 
> Let's cut to the chase. This link shows you several examples of what I was
> able to produce.
> 
> http://moses.sca.ncsu.edu/~mhrivnak/wifi_maps/north_raleigh/
> 
> Numbers 9 and 11 show you the route that was driven, while the rest depict the
> networks found in various representations. For maps 6-8, red networks have
> WEP, green do not, and blue indicate the access points have factory default
> settings.
> 
> gpsmap has five map sources to choose from. My favorite is Mapblast, used for
> maps 6-10. Terraserver provides satellite/aerial photography that I used for
> map 11. As you can see by comparing 9 and 11, Mapblast has tremendous
> accuracy while Terraserver has noticeable variation.
> 
> PROCESS
> 
> These were created using kismet, http://www.kismetwireless.net/ and gpsdrive,
> http://gpsdrive.kraftvoll.at/
> 
> I used kismet to collect data on wifi networks that my laptop was able to
> detect. It saves that data to sets of log files that can later be used to
> generate maps. Kismet includes the program "gpsmap" which processes data
> after the fact to generate maps.
> 
> Step 1:
> 
> I used "gpsd" from the gpsdrive project to interface kismet with my Garmin
> eTrex Legend gps through the serial port. Here's how that worked:
> 
> gpsd -S 2222 -p /dev/ttyS0 -s 4800
> 
> Kismet should detect and connect to gpsd without any changes to default
> settings. A complicating issue is that the gps3d project,
> http://www.mgix.com/gps3d/, also contains a binary "gpsd" that is different
> from gspdrive's gpsd and is not compatible with kismet. Getting these two
> mixed up caused me more confusion than anything else in this process.
> 
> Step 2:
> 
> Fire up kismet. There are other documents that can explain this. There are
> also some promising GUI front ends, none of which I've actually tried. If
> all goes well, you should see location data in the kismet window.
> 
> Step 3:
> 
> Travel. Data for these maps was collected in a car. I'm planning to mount an
> antenna to my bicycle soon so I can collect data while getting into
> shape. Pick your favorite means.
> 
> Step 4:
> 
> Now that you have some data, use gpsmap to generate maps. The logs are saved
> in kismet's working directory. Here is how map 10 was created:
> 
> gpsmap -r -S 0 -n 2 -k -s 7000 -o ~/map10.jpg Kismet-May-01-2005-5.gps
> 
> gpsmap automatically downloads the appropriate map from the source you choose.
> 
> There are some features lacking in either software support or my ability to
> find them:
> 
> First of all, I would like the ability to plot for example only the networks
> with WEP. gpsmap can already differentiate to the extent that it will color
> code based on WEP, but I want the ability to decide what gets plotted based
> on WEP. The same could be applied to channel number.
> 
> So far, my efforts to put labels on the maps, such as ssid, have failed
> miserably. The labels tend to be put in all the wrong places. I suspect
> this would work better on a map less crowded with networks.
> 
> Lastly, I am concerned about what will happen when I start collecting data
> with a good antenna. The data for these maps was collected with an Orinoco
> silver card with its built-in antenna. I can imagine that if I use a good
> antenna to drastically increase reception, the maps will become so crowded
> that they will be less useful. Luckily, gpsmap has some features that may
> help this situation such as "feathering".
> 
> This is all of course purely academic. It's very interesting just how many
> networks were found, 152 in all for this particular session. Thanks to
> Richie Woodbury for his help.
> 
> Michael Hrivnak
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