Forum

Hi guys,

Even though the above mentioned Discovery tools are used for Different platforms,Netstumbler uses Active scanning and Kismet uses passive scanning. Can anyone tell me which type of scanning is more efficient and hence which tool is more efficient in locating Wireless LAN's?

Both tools are good freeware discovery tools. If you do not want to announce your existance to the world, using a passive tool is a better choice. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the current version of Netstumbler passive too? If all you want to do is find service sets that broadcast their SSID and those that respond to Null probes, either tool works. The question should be which OS do you want to use, correct tool choice then follows. Are you just war driving?

Nope NetStumbler is very active in sending out Probe Requests. Just setup a sniffer to check.

Hi Bryan,

I downloaded netstumbler version 0.4.0 and in the release notes it says it uses active scanning.To be honest i dont even know if this is the latest version or not. I have just started my journey into the fascinating world of wireless. I am using Windows XP,Its just for wardriving and i am not sure if i will be able to use Kismet as i am not proficient in Linux. can anybody share with me any packet analyser software so probably i can do some R&D on that???

Regards
Satyaranjan

you can use backtrak is a security live cd based on linux and it have kismet ready to use! www.remote-exploit.org and other wireless security tools

Get Omnipeek Personal as a packet analyzer which is FREE.

I'd say Kismet is much better than Netstumbler. I did use Netstumbler on Windows, Kismet on Linux and am now using Kismac on Mac OS X.

Check out Wireless Defence. There you will find some good tools for windows including the MAC ID Changer.