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I attempted to do this once and it turned out to be monumentally difficult. I got as far as setting up a bootable kali thumb drive before getting stopped in my

I attempted to do this once and it turned out to be monumentally difficult. I got as far as setting up a bootable kali thumb drive before getting stopped in my tracks by hardware incompatibilities and unexpected behaviors and errors. These articles make it sounds a LOT easier than it is. I was very disappointed because I was really excited about it.

The_Sponge 9y ago
It's not for the faint of heart or faint of technical skill - different drivers have different behaviors and ways to enter the various capture and raw packet modes needed to do this. Personally, as long as I stick to supported chipsets, I've almost never had an issue.
- wil421 9y ago
  Have you found a wifi card that will work on any laptop or desktop?
  - bebopfunk 9y ago
    I've had great luck with this wireless card. Works out of the box on any linux distro I've used it with. I bought it specifically for its aircrack compatibility (packet injection and monitor mode). https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-AWUSO36NH-Wireless-Long-Rang-Network/dp/B0035APGP6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500921879&sr=8-2&keywords=alfa+wireless+card https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-AWUSO36NH-Wireless-Long-Rang-Net... although some of the reviews seem to indicate there may have been a change in chipset/drivers. I wish you luck!
    - rhinoceraptor 9y ago
      Not all Alfa products are OOB compatible, you definitely need to be careful. I have the AWUS036AC which requires compiling a DKMS module. It was a pain the get working on my Raspberry Pi, I had to try several different drivers and edit a Makefile to get it to compile. But I did eventually get it working as an AP, there's a script called create_ap which is very nice to painlessly run an AP on Linux.
      - wil421 9y ago
        Thanks I was looking for something that could work on Mac, Linux, Pi and Windows.
  - madez 9y ago
    The stuff from https://tehnoetic.com https://tehnoetic.com (EU) https://www.thinkpenguin.com https://www.thinkpenguin.com (USA) just works.
  - proctor 9y ago
    I tested some of the most popular Kali Linux compatible cards against each other here[0]. Note that there is a version 2 of the popular and cheap TP-Link TL-WN722N which DOES NOT work like the version 1 and should be avoided. All of these cards are "known to just work" on linux at least. [0] http://rooftopbazaar.com/wirelesscards/ http://rooftopbazaar.com/wirelesscards/
wil421 9y ago
When I was in school and taking some network security classes I attempted to crack my own wifi. Even after buying a wifi card that could do what I need I faced hardware isssues. It was a major PIA. It was almost easier to automate a brute force, sit back and wait.
borne0 9y ago
And to make matters worse the compatible hardware has been counterfeited a thousand times over and you never know which one you're going to get purchasing online.
rxhernandez 9y ago
I beg to differ. I was doing this at 15 or 16 years old in 2006 when it was still called backtrack. So long as you had a mainstream laptop, the most difficult part was buying a compatible wireless card. To note, the extent of my technical abilities at that time wasn't much beyond being able to install a mainstream linux distribution or write a simple program in C.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Yeah, I used Backtrack to show my brother that his big complex password didn't mean anything if he was using WEP (this was quite a while ago). On a pretty standard laptop (intel chipset/CPU/GPU/Wireless) it booted right up with no effort.
- aerovistae 9y ago
  Regrettably it didn't work out that way for me. I had a brand new macbook air at the time I tried this. When I booted into Kali, I was unable to access the network settings at all[1], period, let alone get any packet sniffing going. I couldn't even connect to the internet. [1] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/273941/missing-network-manager-in-kali-linux https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/273941/missing-netw...
- danieka 9y ago
  Thanks for the nostalgia trip. We must be about the same age and I remember hitting up local corporations that had WEP encrypted networks and offering them my help in improving their security. Felt like a real security expert then ;) I'm out of that loop now but security sure did seem a lot easier to get a grip on at that time.

The_Sponge 9y ago

It's not for the faint of heart or faint of technical skill - different drivers have different behaviors and ways to enter the various capture and raw packet modes needed to do this. Personally, as long as I stick to supported chipsets, I've almost never had an issue.

wil421 9y ago
Have you found a wifi card that will work on any laptop or desktop?
- bebopfunk 9y ago
  I've had great luck with this wireless card. Works out of the box on any linux distro I've used it with. I bought it specifically for its aircrack compatibility (packet injection and monitor mode). https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-AWUSO36NH-Wireless-Long-Rang-Network/dp/B0035APGP6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500921879&sr=8-2&keywords=alfa+wireless+card https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-AWUSO36NH-Wireless-Long-Rang-Net... although some of the reviews seem to indicate there may have been a change in chipset/drivers. I wish you luck!
  - rhinoceraptor 9y ago
    Not all Alfa products are OOB compatible, you definitely need to be careful. I have the AWUS036AC which requires compiling a DKMS module. It was a pain the get working on my Raspberry Pi, I had to try several different drivers and edit a Makefile to get it to compile. But I did eventually get it working as an AP, there's a script called create_ap which is very nice to painlessly run an AP on Linux.
    - wil421 9y ago
      Thanks I was looking for something that could work on Mac, Linux, Pi and Windows.
- madez 9y ago
  The stuff from https://tehnoetic.com https://tehnoetic.com (EU) https://www.thinkpenguin.com https://www.thinkpenguin.com (USA) just works.
- proctor 9y ago
  I tested some of the most popular Kali Linux compatible cards against each other here[0]. Note that there is a version 2 of the popular and cheap TP-Link TL-WN722N which DOES NOT work like the version 1 and should be avoided. All of these cards are "known to just work" on linux at least. [0] http://rooftopbazaar.com/wirelesscards/ http://rooftopbazaar.com/wirelesscards/

wil421 9y ago

When I was in school and taking some network security classes I attempted to crack my own wifi. Even after buying a wifi card that could do what I need I faced hardware isssues. It was a major PIA. It was almost easier to automate a brute force, sit back and wait.

borne0 9y ago

And to make matters worse the compatible hardware has been counterfeited a thousand times over and you never know which one you're going to get purchasing online.

rxhernandez 9y ago

I beg to differ. I was doing this at 15 or 16 years old in 2006 when it was still called backtrack. So long as you had a mainstream laptop, the most difficult part was buying a compatible wireless card. To note, the extent of my technical abilities at that time wasn't much beyond being able to install a mainstream linux distribution or write a simple program in C.

maxerickson 9y ago
Yeah, I used Backtrack to show my brother that his big complex password didn't mean anything if he was using WEP (this was quite a while ago). On a pretty standard laptop (intel chipset/CPU/GPU/Wireless) it booted right up with no effort.
aerovistae 9y ago
Regrettably it didn't work out that way for me. I had a brand new macbook air at the time I tried this. When I booted into Kali, I was unable to access the network settings at all[1], period, let alone get any packet sniffing going. I couldn't even connect to the internet. [1] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/273941/missing-network-manager-in-kali-linux https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/273941/missing-netw...
danieka 9y ago
Thanks for the nostalgia trip. We must be about the same age and I remember hitting up local corporations that had WEP encrypted networks and offering them my help in improving their security. Felt like a real security expert then ;) I'm out of that loop now but security sure did seem a lot easier to get a grip on at that time.