NetStumbler and Other Sniffer Tools

A sniffer tool is a program that uses a wireless network adapter to scan for active networks and displays the characteristics of each network. NetStumbler is a very slick Windows utility that will find network characteristics and display a list, like the one in Figure 11-6, that shows everything you need to know about a detected network signal, including the MAC address, SSID, channel number, and the signal strength and quality. If you have a global positioning system (GPS) device connected to your computer, NetStumbler can also identify the exact latitude and longitude of the location where it detected the strongest signal from each access point, and it can estimate the distance between your current location ...

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