Macbook pro (june 2010) airport promiscuous mode

Question

Hi all,
For my network security course, I have to sniff a wireless network.
Is it possible to put the airport extreme in promiscuous mode? When I use wireshark and select the "capture packets in promiscuous mode" I can only see my own traffic...Although when I check my "en1" status in ifconfig, I see that the "promisc" flag is set..strange
I've put the wpa/psk password in wireshark so that's not the problem.
So my final question is, does the promiscuous mode on airport extreme work on a 2010 macbook pro?

Answer 1

flawlessnyc wrote:
Of course it's my network and devices. And I'm interested in email accounts. As a parent . . . . well ya gotta be diligent.
Look at the devices - how are they accessing the email?
If it is via webmail in the browser (or a 'browser based' app) look for account setting to only use https. Some providers will only allow login via https which is secure, http is not secure, these can usually be 'forced' with account settings.
When logged in does the website remain on https, if it goes to http instead the email content could be visible on that network. Bookmark the https url for the child, and remove any http urls for the same site so they are less likely to use http by accident. Explain to the kids why the 'green lock' in the address bar (indicates https) is important for reading email or any other 'private' data.
Do the same with search engines (so their searches may be 'invisible' to the local network).
If they are using an email client like Apple Mail check the settings again for each mail server, there are options to only use the specific server, and only use secure protocols (SSL,TLS…). That should prevent the mail being sent in plain text across the network, however email is inherently insecure as a service (it bounces from mail server to mail server with to & from addresses visible) so the kids may be better off using iMessage or another chat service that has some level of encryption / privacy.
You can try viewing the network traffic to find passwords for these services, but it is very involved…
Monitor in promiscous mode on the same wifi channel as the network.
Decrypt the wifi traffic (you need the network key for this since wifi itself is encrypted (WEP, WPA, WPA2 etc)
Look for the email traffic & recombine the packets to follow the conversation, but you still cannot read https traffic.
All you will be able to find is passwords or form values for websites that do not use https.
There are other things they should be careful with - like avoiding unknown/ open/ free wifi networks. Even cellular towers can be malicious nowadays, so disabling cellular data could help them be a little more secure. They should also avoid accepting certificates or 'profiles' to connect to any network.
I'm not sure that watching packets in the air will get you better results any quicker that learning how to secure the settings on each device, pass on the info to the kids & eventually they will start to get it
P.S
You may be able to lock settings via parental controls. iOS has 'restrictions' within the Settings app. Just use them carefully otherwise they will nag you about being unable to take a photo or use maps etc!