Tag Archives: Networking
Capturing Mobile Traffic Using Fiddler
This article will briefly go over the details on how to capture wifi traffic from your mobile devices. This includes capturing traffic on iPads, iPhones, BlackBerries, Android devices and pretty much any device that supports the ability to add a proxy to the wifi settings.
First we will install our trusty friend Fiddler. I used version 2 as it is classed as ‘Stable’ and it just works 
Once you have installed Fiddler, install the CertMaker add-on (this allows you to view SSL traffic by using a modified version of the default self-signed certificate that comes with Fiddler).
Now open Fiddler and click on Tools –> Fiddler Options and make sure you have set:
Got a WPS Enabled Router? Consider Disabling it or Risk DoS
WPS stands for wi-fi protected set-up. It’s supposed to make it easier for non-tech savvy people to authenticate devices on to a wireless network by pressing a physical button on the router or entering a PIN in to a device to make it known to the network.
The problem with WPS is quite a big one. There are many fundamental flaws in the WPS model – I won’t go through these in this article but a simple Google search will expose these many vulnerabilities in WPS – one which I discovered by accident today is a relatively (scarily) easy denial of service on an end-users network.
How to Boost your Wireless Strength with DD-WRT
If you have a DD-WRT powered router then you already know how powerful and feature-full it is, compared to a standard out-of-the-box ISP provided router.
This article will be about making use of the features that DD-WRT provides out of the box, as well as some other ‘hacks’ we can use to boost the wireless signal in your home or office.
The ones I will talk about today are as follows (in order of usefulness and ease):
- Wireless channel selection
- Update firmware and/or drivers!
- Transmit (Tx) Power
- Beacon Interval
Force DD-WRT to use OpenDNS Servers for DNS Queries
In one of my recent articles, I explained how I set-up a guest wireless network for our work place (after getting it to work with the right wireless channel 
)
After configuring the guest access point, I set up the DNS servers to point to OpenDNS in order to provide a safer and faster DNS service (compared to the default DNS servers our ISP provides) as well as choosing what web-sites should be allowed on the network.
For example, bandwidth hogging (Media/Video Sharing) and other web-sites which could potentially be used for illicit purposes (P2P/File Sharing) are forbidden on the network.
Choosing the Right Channel for Your Wireless Network
Choosing the wireless channel to use on your network can be a real pain in the ass; especially if you live or work (if this is a business network) in a densely populated area.
Put simply, channels are the radio ‘frequencies’ which your devices use, to talk to the router to get on to the internet or on the LAN.
If there are too many routers using the same channel in a close proximity, data sent by your devices can start to experience a slow-down or worse; corruption.
