Other AP Games

This section discusses two more fun ways to employ access point location sensitivity and content delivery: Capture the Flag and the difficult to name, real-world virtual tour.

Capture the Flag

Capture the Flag is a merging of the AP-Hunt game into a sort of treasure hunt.Two teams are created (and of course there’s a game coordinator). Each team has the object of finding all of the other team’s access points and returning to base. The winner is the first team to return to base with the locations of all of the enemy “flags.”

Capture the Flag takes little planning. Each team’s access point (also known as a flag) should be assigned an SSID and the AP owners need to log the GPS location with the game coordinator before starting. An example SSID scheme could be:

CTF0604-blueteam-roxors-3

CTF0604-redteam-rulez-C

The SSID is broken down as follows: Game-name (CTF), date ( June 2004), team, a motivating comment, and the access point identification. For the blue team, “3” represents flag three of five. For the red team, “C” represents flag three of five.

In setting up the game, draw a line across the game play area to separate the two teams. Access points should be on each side of the line like they would be in any good CTF map. Figure 11-9 shows a CTF map with red team and blue team access points strewn about the battle field.

Capture the Flag can be played with as few as two people (without a referee) or as many as feasible. One can envision a parking lot full of wardrivers ready to be unleashed into each other’s enemy territory trolling for specially named access points.Time is your only ally. It’s up to you to devise some defensive tactics.

Virtual Touring in the Real World

The virtual tour is difficult to name accurately, but a simple concept: location-aware digital content is delivered to visitors to a space in the real world. This can be done with special equipment as is being done by experimenters in the Netherlands. Or you can set up a virtual tour yourself with a few access points and a Web site.

Employ the Web site to give guided tours of the local area. Foot traffic with a wireless PDA or laptop will discover a locally installed access point, obtain an IP address, and load a Web page with content about the local surroundings. The visitors can surf to the Web site manually, or use a captive portal system (like that shown in Chapter 10) to direct users to visit the appropriate Web page.

Figure 11-10 shows a diagram of a virtual tour. Access points are placed in strategic locations to deliver content about the surroundings.

This can be done for parkland tours, historic neighborhood facts, walk-throughs of museum grounds, and any other form of locally-based content. Virtually any self-guided tour could be delivered over a wireless network access point. And location-aware content brings the tourist on-site in the real world and the digital world in a single moment.

Finding an Edge in Competition

When you’re getting started in AP gaming, just about any software will do the job. But what do you do when winning becomes your determined goal? Here we will discuss some of the finer points of software choice and how it relates to AP games.

The software choices available are often defined by the operating system used on your computer. When choosing the software and operating system for your platform, you want to choose an OS that fits within your current support network of technically savvy friends and associates. Being a lone-adopter can be trying when you’re attempting to install a new network driver at 2:00 in the morning.

The two popular choices for access point detection are the same as for war driving: Linux running Kismet, and Windows running NetStumbler. There are advantages to Linux in its low cost to implement and huge amount of free, opensource software available.Windows also boasts a long history of easy-to-use software that’s easy to obtain and install.

Linux users can run the Kismet Wireless scanner, the gold standard of free war driving software. Kismet is quite powerful, but setting it up is not trivial. It requires obtaining, compiling, installing, and configuring several packages with little direct support. This is where your personal technical support network comes in handy.

Windows users can download and install NetStumbler. NetStumbler requires little effort to get working as compared to Kismet. Some users are able to download, install, and run NetStumbler in a few clicks. NetStumbler is the easy-entry war driving software. Although Kismet is more powerful, most wardrivers still choose to run NetStumbler. See Chapter 6 for more on NetStumbler.

Although Windows/NetStumbler users can use a GPS and mapping software in conjunction with NetStumbler, it is important to note that NetStumbler only pinpoints your GPS coordinates during scanning. Linux users may find themselves at an advantage, in this case, by using Kismet and GPSDrive/Gpsd, which allows a user to pinpoint the actual location of an access point in realtime based on multiple Signal-to-Noise Ratio readings along with GPS coordinates. The result of this on-the-fly logging is superior accuracy and speed when pinpointing access points.

NetStumbler is designed to identify access points within a given range. It detects them by transmitting and receiving beacon signals, which are then in turn used to synchronize communication along the network.

NetStumbler users can use a program called StumbVerter, available atwww.sonarsecurity.com, which converts NetStumbler log files to create plotted maps based upon their coordinates. Unfortunately, it requires Microsoft’s MapPoint, a fairly expensive mapping tool (see Chapter 7 for more on MapPoint and NetStumbler).

Kismet is not only able to detect access points through Signal-to-Noise Ratio graphs, but is also able to sniff packets. You can use GPS mapping plug-ins to automatically triangulate the actual GPS coordinates of an access point. You may also view Signal-to-Noise Ratio graphs in

real time. A “hot/cold” system is able to automatically track optimum signal and the approximate location of the access point. Additional plug-in software is available to switch between location mapping and access point locating tasks.

Kismet has been designed with the intentions of seamless interaction with the GPSDrive software, thus creating powerful maps in real time, on-the-fly, from the data recorded during the session. Access points are plotted in their approximate location for easy identification, through the use of either custom or pre-made maps downloaded off the Internet.

In order to fully utilize the capabilities of Kismet, you should have the latest version of the software installed on your PC. The latest version can be found at www.kismetwireless.net/.

Summary

This chapter has introduced you to several ways of using wireless access points, as more than just a way to get on the Internet. Playing Fox Hunt,Treasure Hunt, Capture the Flag, and creating Virtual Tours are pushing access point functionality to its limits in a way never intended by the manufacturer. Using an access point in the manner described here is on the cutting edge and can only become more interesting.

Access point gaming is continually increasing in popularity and, with wireless technology becoming more and more widespread, you can count on access point gaming being a vital part of recreation using wireless equipment.

Read on to Chapter 12 and discover how to add a wireless Internet connection to your TiVo digital video recorder. Download program updates without a telephone line. Subscribe to the TiVo Home Media Option and stream music to your entertainment center over the TiVo. Create a slideshow and transfer movies from one TiVo DVR to another in a different part of the house, all using your in-home wireless network and TiVo.