Does the wireless card on the PSP support promiscuous mode?

Discuss the development of new homebrew software, tools and libraries.

Moderators: cheriff, TyRaNiD

Post Reply
kaboofa
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:23 pm

Does the wireless card on the PSP support promiscuous mode?

Post by kaboofa »

I was sitting in my little cave of a room and was thinking about how awesome it would be to be able to do 'wireless network analysis' without hauling my laptop around :)

So here is my question, does the PSP's network card support promiscuous mode? And if it does, do the header files exist for it yet?
mstrhelix
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:43 am

Post by mstrhelix »

well there is a new homebrew app for psp called WIFISNIFFER check that out. i don't think it sniffs traffic just connections. You can find it on the front page of pspupdates.qj.net
pspkrazy
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 1:31 am

not new

Post by pspkrazy »

This is not new.

A guy ripped the wifi scanner sample from Tyranid (look in sdk/samples) and made some (bad) interface in front of it.

...
HaQue
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Contact:

Post by HaQue »

I am writing an app called PSPwardrive. PSPstumbler was taken! though the app doesnt work for me and it doesnt look like it is being developed anymore.

My app also started off with Tyranids code, as really, what else is around for someone beginning a project like this. I wouldnt call it "ripped" unless the author didnt give credit, or just copied it outright... thats why the samples are there ;)

I am certain that the functions used by Tyranid can't be extended to monitor mode. I am working on getting the raw packets also, and ultimately would like to capture them in the same format as other common apps like kismet.

I hope to get some testing done with the new code during the week.

There isnt readily available info on the drivers on the PSP yet, but similar devices do exist, linux drivers are in their infancy.

I am taking one step at a time and hopefully it will be a fun app to use, and maybe even useful.

Unfortunately I am not allowed to disassemble my psp as my wife loves ridge racer... enuff said there. hardware hacking is out for the moment.

I dont beleive there is a need to get that down and dirty with it anyway, software is the key.

To answer your question, whats in the wifi samples is it for know (AFAIK) and if you want to go deeper, start disassembling/writing drivers and join the many whom I am sure are doing the same.

BTW, I am sceptical that was the correct usage of "whom".

Good luck in your pursuit of this if you decide to lose a bit of sleep :)

HaQue
Arwin
Posts: 426
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:00 pm

Post by Arwin »

You are correct. You should just have used who, because it is the subject of the (joined) clause. If who were used as, say, a dative, as for instance in "the many happy psp programmers (to) whom Tyranid has given this wonderful code", it would have been correct.

If you don't want to break your head over it, then just never use it when who is the subject. In all other cases, most English speakers haven't a clue either. :D

(at least, I think so - I'm not a native speaker myself)
HaQue
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Contact:

Post by HaQue »

I know enough english to get me out of trouble in most situations, just like most other South Australians! :-)

Now, has anyone figured out any lower level access to the wifi card?

I don't suppose anyone has a firmware file for the card?
openfly
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 2:00 am

Post by openfly »

Well,

I did some research on this a while back. I agree the psp would make a neat wireless scanning tool. It's small, not too far beyond mediocre in range, but most of all it doesn't look suspicious. What do we need to make a useful scanning application?

1. Promiscuous mode
2. Raw access to data being tx'd and rx'd on the device

From what I've seen there is no way to directly access the wifi chipset inside the psp. You are relying on sony's api. Within their api there is a call to do a netstumbler style lookup of availible access points. This is what all of the war driving style applications I've seen use. I'm not aware of any recent knowledge being divulged about the wifi api that might allow you to get a raw capture of the device in promiscuous mode.

I'd love to hear if someone managed to get this access, but it seems unlikely without a firmware hack. Which is improbable at best.

=D
HaQue
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Contact:

Post by HaQue »

Hi,
I have looked at the sourcecode for the firmware of other similar Marvell chipsets. The capability of promiscuous mode is compiled into the firmware itself. The wireless card itself rejects all packets that do not match that cards MAC address. They are filtered out before the drivers or OS even get a chance to look at them.

The only way that we will get any sort of promiscuous mod is *if* sony did in fact compile it to enable Monitor mode (highly doubtful as the default is not enabled), or we compile a new firmware.

It may be possible to do similar to the intersil 3890 firmwares and just load a new firmware into RAM each time, but I havent had a look to see if the Marvell will suport this.
openfly
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 2:00 am

Post by openfly »

I am going to have to disagree. I have reason to believe sony did enable the monitor mode. That's the easiest way to pull a listing of availible APs. Which they provide an API for, and can be seen used in even the most basic of psp firmware revisions.

I don't doubt that sony could open up monitor mode to us if they wanted to. But I also don't doubt they have no reason on earth to do so. And thusly won't waste the time.

=P
HaQue
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Contact:

Post by HaQue »

That opens up the questions:

How do we find out if monitor mode is enabled in the firmware for certain?

How do we access the wireless card hardware directly(as the sony functions don't give enough control)?

I suppose a closer look at things like scan.prx could shed some light.
Post Reply