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                       Core dumps, WAPs and war driving

After visiting the hospital [1], Mark [2], JeffK and I headed over to Kelly's
[3] to hang out for a bit. How we ended up talking about Michael Jackson [4],
I don't know, but when we were tyring to show Mark just how badly Jacko looks
these days (The HisStory of Michael Jackson's face) [5], Kelly's Windows XP
(eXtremely Pathetic?) box crashed. What I did now know, but Mark did, was
that Windows XP can generate a crash dump for later analysis. When Mark
checked the dump directory, Kelly had approximately 50 dump files already
there.

Unlike Windows NT (Nice Try?), Windows XP doesn't come with dumpcheck.exe,
which will tell you exactly where the crash took place. Mark then spent the
next half hour or so (why not?) trying to determine the location of the
crash, and to track down a copy of dumpcheck.exe. Unfortunately, Kelly's copy
of Windows XP was set to only record a minimal dump, of which dumpcheck.exe
wasn't able to work with. But Mark was able to track the crash down to
ntkernel.dll which pretty much means a buggy driver, although not which
driver is bad. Kelly then configured Windows XP to do a full dump next time
it crashes.

After expressing the sad state of affairs with [DELETED-Wacko-DELETED] Jacko
(Jackson to avoid baby stunt probe) [6], talk then turned towards wireless
networks. Mark recently aquired some equipment and was looking to set up a
WAP (Wireless Access Point) at home. Mark didn't quite realize that WAP
security was a joke (crackable with as little as 5K worth of traffic) and
that really, you need to firewall off any wireless stations; all WAP security
was good for was “to keep someone from inadvertantly connecting to your
network.” Mark was then curious as to the range and from experiments done
here at the Facility in the Middle of Nowhere, we were able to pick up a
signal outside the building, up to maybe twenty yards or so (Rob [7] and I
didn't go much futher than that). We then decided to test Kelly's range.

Mind you, this was at 2:30 in the morning.

So with laptop literally in hand, we walked down the street and found that
the signal strength was good for perhaps a hundred yards or so—definitely
three houses down although it wasn't a straight cut-off point. The
frequencies used tend to bounce around so that going around a corner only ten
yards away would cut the signal entirely; but hit just the right spot and the
signal can bounce down the street.

We also talked a bit about war driving [8] and the best areas to concentrate
on down here in Lower Sheol. We figured the best places would be around
Congress, between Yamato and Clint Moore (in Boca Raton [9]) and along
Cypress Creek, between I-95 and Powerline (in Ft. Lauderdale [10]). One of
these days …

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2002/12/31.2-3
[2] http://www.conman.org/people/myg/
[3] http://www.nevesis.net/
[4] http://www.mjnet.com/
[5] http://anomalies-unlimited.com/Jackson.html
[6] http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/11/20/jackson.baby/
[7] http://www.tragic-smurfs.com/
[8] http://www.wardriving.com/
[9] http://www.ci.boca-raton.fl.us/
[10] http://ci.ftlaud.fl.us/

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