Network authentication bypass

[Pinkvelvet]

I go 2 a college that has wireless access all over campus. my comp can find the network and connect, but when i start internet explorer all i see is a "network authentication" page, and cannot go 2 any other websites until i enter my username and password assigned to my by the college. AIM  does not work either until i have signed in. I was wondering if there is some way i could get around this?

[benthehutt]

Most likely, the school has the wireless access points going through a server that authenticates MAC addresses based on if they provided a valid username and password.  There are many other setups they could have going, but having done no research on this particular network, I couldn't tell you.  I have a similar setup where I go to school.  What I do to get online is this:

Run kismet or a similar wireless sniffer.  Identify MAC addresses that are on one of the access points with the wireless sniffer.  Change your MAC to be the same as one that is already on it.  If you've got Linux, kismet is the way to go (depending on your wireless card, Wellenreiter is also pretty cool, though I'm not sure if it will find MACs).  Then changing your mac is as easy as "sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether [new MAC address]."  You can find all the info on google.  If you've got windows there are a few wireless sniffers that will do the trick--like "Cain and Abel."  I think Wellenreiter has a Windows distrobution as well.

Anyway, the point is, change your MAC to one that's already authenticated.  That may work.  If not, depending on the network, it will probably be quite difficult to get past an authentication server.

[Pinkvelvet]

ok, i see how that will allow me to access the network without putting in my own user and pass, but i would still be on the network with somone elses user/pass basically. This would mean that my bandwidth usage would still be limited and i would be thrown off if i used to many p2p programs. What i want to do is basically bypass authentication entirely, or make the system think im some sort of administrator.

[benthehutt]

I highly doubt bandwidth would be limited.  Also, if you got caught with P2P, they would have a MAC bound to a username/password, so the person whose username you were using would get thrown off and get in trouble.  You would simply need to switch MACs again.  I'm not sure what exactly you're meaning by "bypass."  Even admins would need to supply credentials if the wireless VLAN went through an authentication server.