I had fun with Mario Kart war driving for the past week or two. It's a geeky thing to do, I know.. but oddly enough, I'm sitting here in my room, and your application just detected two networks. My own, and another that was in my neighbourhood that I didn't even know what it was. It's got WEP protection though..

So, that's..making me wonder what's going on here, how sensitive IS this thing?

The blinking light thing when the DS uses it's network capabilities btw, is that just for "show" that the DS is using networkability that Nintendo suggested developers do?

Hmm, I'm starting to wonder if past Nintendo DS games had wifi and didn't want to show it Ahh! portable GPS'! THE GOVERNMENT IS CONTROLLING US PEOPLE!

Er, yeah, first paragraph is the one that matters.

Not sure how sensitive the DS is really, but it seems to do pretty well.

The blinking light thingy is purely done in software, and is done by nintendo's code (official devrs aren't allowed to touch the arm7, sad).

-Stephen

See, the thing is, it's not happening anymore. Mario Kart never saw it before, nor did it see it when your app found them. (I actually found 2 neighbourhood networks that were not my own).

Hell, my Linksys wilreless USB connection didn't find it.. my Ralink compatible wifi card didn't either. But the NDS with your app did. That's insanely cool, imo.

Anyway, one slight feature that would be neat for your war driving app would be to "scroll" the text of an SSID if it is longer than what you provide. My SSID is actually called, "YOU THINK YOU'RE COOL DON'T YOU".. your app only displays up to "Cool" lol.

Sure, it'd be nice, but it's not exactly vital functionality for the application. Personally, I'd much prefer a working application before the tacking-on of various bells and whistles.

(Ignoring the fact that I don't have a DS with which I could use the wardriver anyway )

You know, I also just tested it out today and noticed that it is detecting things quite far way. I can walk all the way up to the corner of my driveway (....we have a realy long driveway...more like a whole road...) and was able to turn my DS on and have it detect my network (this distance is way past what my wireless card on my laptop or router says it can go)...I can't go this far with my laptop and wireless card.

I also noticed that this seems to detect things a lot better than the Nintendo WFC thing.

Finaly (this is probaly already known), but if you drive or walk around out of the range of the wireless signal (i'm talking where you are miles away and are sure there is no way you could still be reciving that same signal), it stays on the screen. I drove from my house to perkins and found about 20 wireless hotspots....most of them not usijng wep I was pretty surprised...

You might have already figured this out, but wardriving apps are supposed to keep records around long after you're out of range - it's sorta the whole point

Anyway, yet another version is released (version 0.1b)
I'll add the release notes to the main post.

-Stephen

Regardless, the distance on this thing is incredible. I love it.

The real tester of the distance is to start the program from a fresh bootup to check to see if it detects the networks. I turned it on now and can actually detect 4 (!!) networks.

Now, I know nothing about how WiFi systems work and such, but I'm sure the PCs, Laptops, PDAs, AND DS's are all programmed to filter out SSIDs with close to practically no signal. This thing at least detects the SSID, despite how faint the signal is. It's really impressive. One wonders if the PSP is this sensitive.

Now if there were only a way to amplify the DS's antenna to be able to connect to one of these distant networks.

I've been working on accuracy - next version will have beteter signal strength indication.

-Stephen

Different Adapters are programmed to filter out networks it cannot communicate with efficiently enough, depending on the card. Usually its programmed into the firmware but ive seen a couple wireless adapters that allow you to change this.

I have a feature idea that may be somewhat useful.

Maybe some sort of option to export the list to a.txt file, which you can then transfer off your card and onto your computer for future reference? Just a thought.

Very handy, I found 9 spots (4 are from the highschool near me, though), that I couldnt get from searching via mario kart. (I could get one in mario kart if I was on my back porch in the corner...but only barely)..

Very nice stuff.

lol thats hilarious

I just downloaded the test app last night and I was amazed at the signal strength. When I loaded up the wardriving app it found at least 20 APs. Granted, I live in a big city, but still. The DS wifi would only find maybe 2 or 3 (including mine) and windows usually picks up about 5-10. Using a wardriving app on my pocketpc would usually list more, about 10-15. I guess many of these programs simply hide the signals that are below a certain threshhold. Anyway, great work Steven. Your wardriving app has managed to pick up far more wireless networks than I knew existed in my area. Good job.

I get about 40 networks just sitting in front of my computer. mario kart WFC only finds about 6 or 7 usually. so it must be filtering out the low signal strength ones, or maybe ones with encryption methods the DS doesn't support (WPA?)

If I walk to the top floor of my apt. building and hold it out over the railing, i get like 150 networks.

crazy, eh?

You're crazy for actually holding your DS over the railing on the top floor.