Uncategorized – BionicWi-Fi

I’m Not Crying, You Are

The WiFi professionals community defines that word – community. We have an incredibly active Twitter presence, we have conferences, we have Field Day, we have our own vernacular, we have shared pain unique to our niche. We call each other by our first names and not Twitter handles. It’s a specialty with its own very different challenges. It’s a dual discipline job, half RF nerd and half Network bit jockey. Because of the unique challenges and the tight-knit aspects of the industry anyone in the trenches, I dare say, would answer anyone else’s phone call.

Perhaps the highest honor in this community is the CWNE (Certified Wireless Network Expert) from the excellent training and certification organization, CWNP (Certified Wireless Network Professionals). Why is it the highest? Every other expert level certification in the industry is a combination of proctored tests, some including live labs. They are hard, most of them DAMN hard. CWNE combines four of these tests – difficult ones, with a BUNCH of other stuff. The other stuff is why I’m elated to have been conferred with this thing.

You have to do Pearson-Vue tests, the hard ones. There is the CWNA for table stakes. It’s called an administrator test, it’s an engineer test, flat and simple. Then there’s the CWAP, which is the DEEP packet analysis test. That one nearly killed me in prep. Then the CWDP, the design test. Then the CWSP, the security test. They are 90 minute 60 question tests. You need a 70% to pass. The CWNA/CWSP were a bear when I first got them in 2004. They are as tough now, even having done this kind of work for all of those intervening years (they expired after 3 years and I hadn’t renewed).

So when you pass those it’s all just getting started. Next is three endorsements from people in the field. You also need two other valid certifications, not from CWNP. You have to have three years of verifiable experience specifically in WiFi. You then write three essays of 500-1000 words about projects you’ve worked. Next comes the painful part. You zip it all up and send it to the CWNP. Then you hold your breath for several weeks. You also check your email obsessivly, wake up in cold sweats and annoy your friends as your imposter syndrome goes in to overdrive. During this extended misery the CWNE Board of Advisors does a peer review. They have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions and generally validate that you are worthy of conferral.

Eventually you get an email. If you are me, you basically hang up on your work partner and call your wife crying.

I’ve passed hard tests that span eight hours. I’ve gotten certifications that require verified experience and a long wait. I’ve not, until now, had a certification that involved such subjective validation of my work by my peers and betters. I may still have imposter syndrome, but it has eased up a tiny bit.

WLAN Pi Battery Testing

Man, I love this little guy. I have mentioned it before, I will do it again…and again….and again. It is so incredibly easy to drop on a network, see the IP pop up on the OLED and start iPerf3 to check network speeds, get speeds from ePerf in your Ekahau site survey, use a graphical speed test, use HORST to grab packets, launch Kismet to see the WLANs around, have an endpoint for WiFi Explorer Pro, or add anything else a Raspberry Pi can run to customize it. I’ll follow up with the junk I have added to mine at a later date.

One shortcoming of the current crop of Single Board Computers, including the one used in the WLAN Pi, is the lack of real PoE. Some can use the phony bologna “passive PoE” a certain prosumer WiFi vendor uses, but who has time for such nonsense? You end up having to either use a USB PoE splitter or add a hat to the device. Bummer. The nice thing is that they draw very little power. One great way to pop one up quickly is to just use a USB battery pack. Rather than dealing with the splitters or finding wall power, I’ve found the battery pack to be a quick and easy solution. I carry one anyway, and my bag is pretty full, so why not use it? I like everything possible in my backpack to have at least two uses. I don’t have any other reason to carry a USB PoE splitter.

I have amassed many of these battery packs over the years as charging technologies have changed. I harbor a mild obsession with using the fastest possible charging technology for my current phone. Most recently that is the Pixel 2 XL, which uses USB Power Delivery as does my Macbook. The battery packs I used are specifically because I am most likely to have one of them in my bag (I also obsessively re-organize my bag so it can change depending on the day). I hope to test with some others if I can pull them from my son’s hands.

First the setup – I used a WLAN Pi running WLAN Pi v1.3 (Released 06-03-2018). I had the Comfast CF-912AC in it, plugged into one of my Aruba switches. I booted it and immediately started Kismet to make sure the WLAN adapter was being used. I then started a ping from one of my servers with a timestamp (used this on Windows) and let it sit and cook.

The first battery I tested was my light and quick one. It’s an Auckley (not to be confused with Auckey) 10,000 mAh pack that is actually pretty slim. Now that I have a phone with a decent battery I carry it with me most of the time. It’s just a little oomph if I am in a single meeting and need to make sure I have enough juice. It is USB-PD and works fairly well for a generic. It was one of the only PD packs on the market for quite a while, so I went with the generic. Most that do PD are gigantuon (like the second one I tested).

So, the Auckley actual gave me 14 hours 22 minutes of use! If you need to be running this thing for THAT long straight, you’ve got big issues. REALLY impressive. These things sip power through a Capri Sun straw.

The second battery was my big daddy (he loves it when you call him Big Papa). The RavPower 26,800 mAh is a BEAST. This is the one I carry on planes or when I am going to be in meetings all day. As one would expect, it lasted an amazingly long time. I got 32 hours and 13 minutes out of it, using the same testing!

Mathing out the draw vs the capacity of the battery is one thing. As you can see testing with all the variables is quite another. I hope this helps give a feel for how long you can run these amazing little devices on the battery pack you probably already have with you!

So You Want To Be A CISSP

Four years verified security experience. An intimidating test. A waiting period that made me lose more hair. This was my CISSP experience. When I took the CISSP it was bubble sheet/Scan Tron. Eight hours for 500 questions from 10 domains ranging from Physical Security to arcane Data Classification used by the military around the time War Games came out. It is, to use an oft used descriptor, a mile wide and an inch deep.

I sat for the test in March of 2006. I self studied. It was, to say the least, intense. Did I make it more intense than I needed to? Probably. I tend to over engineer about anything I can. Usually you can judge your level of study and adequacy of your methods by your test score. Trouble is, you don’t see that in the CISSP. To the person, everyone I have talked to has the same comment “When I walked out, I had no idea if I had passed or bombed it!” When I took it, I had no computerized option, bubble sheet and #2 pencils only. It took 3 weeks to find out if I passed the test. At least that was via email. Then started the background validation. That was another 3 weeks. How did they tell me I passed? I got an envelope with Rocky Gregory, CISSP on it. Saw it for the first time. This was a cert I had wanted since the day I heard about it. Something I sacrificed for, prepped for and lost a lot of sleep to. Needless to say, I wept like I was watching Rudy.

One of the questions I get asked most often is what materials I used to study. It’s important to stop here and note my study process. Like everything I do, there is a process.

The Resources:

As a rule, I have 3 forms of all of the study materials on any exam. I have a primary book – This is the one I read from, mark up, etc. I use it for the entire study session. I have a second source – typically the “next best” version. I do this as people have different writing styles. They use different analogies. They use a different tone and assume different levels of skill and background. If I am baffled by a concept in book 1, I go to book 2 and read it there. I also tend to take the chapter and content tests out of the second book, rather than the first. More on that later. Third – I have an Exam Cram type book. One of those skinny, packed with questions, pump and dump type texts. NOT a brain dump, those are crap and they degrade our industry. I mean the Exam Cram book series. I certify to build my knowledge, renew my understandings, validate I am still mostly sane, and then the letters after my name. Considering the price of most exams, and the fact that a lot of employers only pay for your first attempt, the test is ultimately fairly important. Below are the modern versions of the books I used. I have suggested them for the last 7 years, as well as my study methods and am proud to say the folks I have coached have passed the first time through!

The Books:

Fir TheBible st and foremost, the Shon Harris All-In-One Guide is a must. This is the Golden Book. I have known some folks that have used only this resource and passed.

Next is good old Sybex. Sybex have been around a dogs age and I have used them since my NT4 MCSE prep. They are consistently mediocre, but always a good secondary text. They employ good writers, have a very clean look and feel, and it’s another “voice” to read the text.

Finally, a good Exam Cram guide for cramming, after chapter testing, and the bare bones answers.

The Method:

I’m fortunate enough to be a moderate test taker. I’m extremely fortunate enough to have had a class on another topic taught by my friend and true instructor, ‘‘KC” Keith Charles. KC taught me study tips that I use to this day, and share with anyone studying for a cert. I’ve developed a project style preparation system as well. I tend to put together a project plan for everything I do. A friend once joked that I can’t refill my water bottle without a plan, process and system. So, here it goes:

From KC, the power and virtue of NERVOUS NOTES. The nervous notes concept changed my testing life. The concept is simple. You are nervous when you sit for a test. Doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve got a bit of agita. These notes affirm what you know, give you crib notes for what you don’t. You write them over and over until it is muscle memory. It gives you a second applied sense from which to learn, adds some kinesthesia and drives it home in general. Details on how I use nervous notes:
Have a plan for what you will study each session. “I will finish this malarky about the Orange Books tonight”. “I will finally be able to explain Elliptical Curve Cryptography to my bulldog by the end of this session”.
Read the exam objectives. Highlight the areas that are going to be troublesome. Print those, have them somewhere you can see while you study. Review and check off what you are comfortable with.
I really like to read a chapter or concept in one book, then test on it from the end of the chapter in another book. I do this method until I am hitting in the 80% range, recursively study until I hit that number. I then test in the primary source and the tertiary. Once it’s solid, it’s solid. It goes in the memory bank until the final week or two before the test. Then I do the whole mugilla, chapter by chapter test. I will sometimes challenge myself to go back x chapters at the end of a session on an entirely different topic. With such a theoretical test as the CISSP, this can be a great game to play on yourself.
Set study times. You’re busy. I’m busy. Congress is busy. Get over it, set a specific time. Lock yourself in a room. If you dig music and can have it without being distracted, rock that.
Set a date and work back. If you are paper and penciling it, this is pretty easy. If you are computer basing it, set the date and build your study plan backwards from that date.

Nervous Notes:

Take out an 8.5×11 sheet of paper at the beginning of your study session.
Start making tables, charts, squiggles and notes on the stuff that you are having a hard time with. For me a good example was EAP types for my CWSP. Nice little table of type, security level, definition, etc.
After your first session, take out the sheet and refine it, copy it by hand.
Wash, rinse repeat.
As test time gets closer, finish up the notes sheet. Make a gold image. Copy it before and after each session, at least once, if not a few times. Get to where you are NOT thinking as you write it out. You want to affirm what you know, give crib for what you struggle with and give yourself some time to breath before you hit the begin button or rip open the test book.
Get an 8.5×11 sheet of paper at the test center. The proctor will give you one and a pencil if you demand it, and as long as you give them the paper back after. That was my experience any way. Write out your nervous notes before you tear open the book or hit the start button. This should relax you, enforce you know what you know and give you that quick reference.

So, that’s what I did. Again, this may have been, and in fact probably was, overkill preparation. All I know is that it worked for me and I got those 5 letters I had wanted for so long.

Jukin’

I’m a digital guy. I grew up in front of computers. I have to have the newest and greatest gadgets as soon as possible. I work in technology and spend a lot of my off time dicking around with the latest gizmo.

I like to keep a hand on the analog though. I love the tactile experience of putting a record on the turntable. I love the hisses and pops and imperfections of music carved into a hunk of vinyl. I have an Echo Dot connected to the stereo in my shop where my lab lives and I do use it a lot, but I also like to spin up the turntable and drop the needle on classics not yet digitized, listen, and bask in the warmth.

My grandpa Orville had a float house on the Columbia river where he parked his boat when I was a lad. It was a magical place. A hang out space, a proto-mancave. There was a hardwood bar with bar stools, a pool table, a kegerator, a slot machine, and a 1947 AMI Model C jukebox. When Gramps passed, the only thing I asked for was the jukebox. It was in very rough shape when I got it. The records were gone, parts were missing and it didn’t work. I’ve messed with it over the years and had it temporarily playing, but I’m not good enough with old electronics to have ever gotten it working stably. This is a link to my youth, to the analog, and to good music only available on 78s.

I found a guy in Clackamas (about 10mi away) who does restorations and just completed one of the exact same model! I’m going to look at his work, hopefully this weekend, and just sent him pictures of mine and the stacks of spare parts I’ve accumulated over the 10 years I’ve been working on it. It’s my most prized possession. I’m REALLY hoping his work is good and that he’ll take the job of doing mine! It will go into my burgeoning hang out space in my shop, next to the popcorn maker, kegerator and stand up arcade machine. Now if I can just talk my mom out if the slot machine.

Wish me luck! Here’s what it should look like when finished.

Why Today Is Important

Alan Turing is credited with creating what we today know as the programmable computer. He had the idea before WWII, but work in earnest started in order to crack the “unbreakable” German Enigma machine’s encryption. They were used on U-boats which were destroying allied ships en-masse. Cracking their code would give locations to avoid and other vital information.

He worked in secret and never got credit for his work in his lifetime because it was still a state secret, though it saved thousands of lives. Many believe it to have been a big part of the reason the Germans surrendered.

He was discovered to be gay, a crime then, and penalized with chemical castration. He took his own life. He was posthumously pardoned in 2013 by the Queen. He is one of my biggest heroes and today is his birthday. Read a book on him or at least watch The Imitation Game. It’s pretty close to factual and you wouldn’t be reading this message if it weren’t for Turing.