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What flavor of "nix" is the best for running hacking tools? Which version has the best hacking tools and supports the most wireless nick cards, or at least the most popular ones? I am sorta leaning towards FreeBSD. What are your thoughts?

For linux-based hacking tools, most stuff is written around the Prism2 chipset such as is found in much Microsoft and Belkin 802.11b gear. If you need to use a wireless protocol analyzer, the NetGear WAG511v1 is the best card on the market. It's followed closely by the Proxim 8480 Combo Gold card. Check out www.tamosoft.com for a low-cost, very versatile 802.11a/b/g wireless protocol analyzer called CommView for WiFi.

[quote="Devinator"]If you need to use a wireless protocol analyzer, the NetGear WAG511v1 is the best card on the market. It's followed closely by the Proxim 8480 Combo Gold card.[/quote]
Are there any 802.11 b/g/a PC Cards that have an external antenna jack? I can't seem to find any that do.

No, and the reason is the UNII-1 rule of "integrated antennas". Check out the following URL:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=47&PART=15&SECTION=407&YEAR=2000&TYPE=TEXT

Section (d) at the very bottom of the document explains the details.

[i] (d) Any U-NII device that operates in the 5.15-5.25 GHz band shall
use a transmitting antenna that is an integral part of the device.[/i]

So what is the rationale for this? To prevent the UNII bands for being used for long distance communication?

Also, this section does not specifically state that a UNII device [b]can't[/b] use an external antenna; it just says that a UNII device must always use an internal antenna. Any vendors taking an advantage of this loophole?

I wouldn't call this a loophole at all...and it's my guess that the FCC sure doesn't either. There's not a single vendor that has pushed this issue by creating a product to exploit it. I wouldn't advise you to be the first. ;-) It's been my experience that the term "shall" is all-inclusive.

The rationale is directly below this directive in the following sections.

[quote="Devinator"]The rationale is directly below this directive in the following sections.[/quote]

Great. As if I don't have enough California "emissions" requirements for my car, now I've got it for my wireless too ;)

Thanks.

I recommend mepis linux. You can find it at http://www.mepis.org It is a distribution based on Debian, and can be obtained from the mepis site for a US $10.00 registration, or you can get the last stable release from various mirrors. Check out http://www.distrowatch.com for more on that. Mepis is a live cd version, so you boot from the cd, and it installs itself in RAM. If you like it, and determine that your hardware is compatible, you can then run the install scripts to install it permanently to your harddrive. There is a very gentle learning curve for Windows users.

Debian has the magical apt-get utility. Once it is installed, you can execute apt-get install [i]package-name[/i] to install various applications. You can search for debian packages, but most anything I have wanted to install, the simplest name for it worked, like kismet, ethereal, etc.

There is also another live cd distro called WarLinux. Check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/warlinux/ for details. This distro is specifically targeted towards wireless networking.

I hope this is useful.
/ed

Is anybody using Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.org/)?

I want to add a dual-boot partition on my W2K Pro Dell laptop and install Slackware Linux for running Kismet and the like. However, my 20GB drive is nearly full. Rather than spending the $$$US on a larger hard drive, I thought using a flavor of Linux that boots from a CD/DVD would do the trick.

Knoppix seems to be the CD-bootable Linux everyone likes. You can store up to 2GB of application files on a CD using it's built-in on-the-fly decompression feature. There also seems to be a lot of support for it in the Linux community.

Anyone use Knoppix for laptops, kiosks, quick OS changes, or whatever?

OK people, you have got to try this: http://www.knoppix-std.org/

This is Knoppix STD 0.1 security tools distribution. It is the Knoppix Linux OS with a load of security and network management tools included. Just download the ISO image, buring it to CD, boot from the CD in your laptop, and you have an instant wardriving setup.

The wireless tools included are:

* airsnarf : rogue AP setup utility
* airsnort : sniff, find, crack 802.11b
* airtraf : 802.11b network performance analyzer
* gpsdrive : use GPS and maps
* kismet 3.0.1 : for 802.11 what else do you need?
* kismet-log-viewer : manage your kismet logs
* macchanger : change your MAC address
* wellenreiter : 802.11b discovery and auditing
* patched orinoco drivers : automatic (no scripts necessary)

The complete list of tools is here: http://www.knoppix-std.org/tools.html.

It works great on my Dell laptop with an Orinoco Gold card.