Need help connecting to school network

[nuka_t]

i had my ppc at my school today, and when i turned the wifi on i noticed they had a wifi connection. im using 2k3se and i just said its connecting to the net and everything seemed to go fine and the signal strength was excelent. however, when i try to use the internet it says there is no connection. :(


everything works fine at home, does it have something to do with WAP?

[gregmills]

Probably not. I believe that if WEP was enabled you would have been prompted to provide the security key. Someone more knowledgeable than I may have a better answer but perhaps they have MAC filtering turned on so your ID was blocked.

[nuka_t]

in mac filtering, would they specifically block me ? or give block everyone and specifically give access?

[gregmills]

No, not likely :wink:

They would set their set their access point to only allow certain MAC IDs and block all others. I imagine that a school would be expecting kids to try to get unauthorized access so they would probably set up every security precaution that their access point allowed.

[nuka_t]

whats the point of wifi if i cant use it? :cry:

i hate the school computers. adware, kazaa, aim installed on all of em by morons. takes about 5 miutes to boot from a cold start(not exagerating). windows 95, and novel crap.

not to mention, i have more ram/ faster processor in my ppc than they do in their desktops. :|

so, no way 'round it?

one kid nearly got suspended cause he made an administrative account for himself when the teacher forgot to log off. :devilboy: i dont want THAT to happen.

[gregmills]

I guess the point of WiFi is for whoever set it up to be able to use it. Not every access point is set up to be a public hot spot.

There are some tools at WiFiFoFum.org (http://wififofum.org/) that will sniff out a little bit more information the network that you are trying to connect to.

WiFiFoFum
WiFiFoFum is a 802.11 scanner designed for PDAs running PocketPC 2003.

StreetHawk
This app will automatically step through available networks and in turn, check if there is web access by requesting the Google index page. It only tries networks that are in infrastructure mode and have WEP off. When an SSID is found it will try to connect, if it doesn’t connect then it will try this SSID the next time only if the signal becomes stronger. If it manages to connect it will try to obtain an IP address. If it doesn’t manage to obtain an IP address it will try this SSID again the next time only if the signal becomes stronger. Once it does obtain an IP address it will try and request the Google.com index page. If the request succeeds and Google responds, the SSID is added to the internet list. Otherwise if an IP was obtained but it could not get the Google page, it will not try this SSID again.

Of course, if you do gain unauthorized access to the Internet by poking around in the school's WiFi setup that would probably carry a penalty similar to trying to set up an admin account for yourself on one of the PCs. School administrators tend to frown on all of that that kind of stuff.

But then again you're probably not going to get access by asking nicely either.

[nuka_t]

if i do get caught (although i wont cause there 1000's of computers hooked up to the network, it would be impossible t for them to see that my specific one was connected) i will just say i was connected to the internet normally, noone said i couldnt and it wasnt secured, so it was an open invitiation.

as for asking nicely, if youre caught playing a flash game, IM'ing, or anything other than doing a report, you get a hole punched through your id card meaning you cant use the school computers anymore. if theyre THAT strict, i dont think "can i get unristicted webaccess to my pocket pc?" is going to play out too nicely.

as for the admin account guy, he was an *******, he only got caught cause everyone hated him and he got ratted on (by the entire 3d animation class :) ).

[Darius Wey]

A lot of this is dependent on a number of factors.

You may require a WEP key to access the network, and judging by the Fort Knox characteristics of the wireless network, I'd suspect you would. And I doubt the admins are going to give you this key.

A lot of wireless networks set up in schools, universities, etc. require a "proxy "for full access. You may be able to connect to the network, but don't expect internet access unless you establish a "proxy". This is usually in the form of a username and password style login process. I doubt you would have one of those specifically designed for the wireless network.

Even if you do connect, do not expect that you won't be able to be traced. You are allocated an IP once you connect, and if your admins are "nerds" who sit in their office all day getting a kick out of monitoring activity, they may be able to identify that another computer has accessed their network.

These are just my thoughts anyway.

[nuka_t]

its not the proxy thing, i get im not connected to the net error, not a proxy error. i was at a dell direct store today and they had wifi at their little stand thing, but that required a proxy, and the error was not the same as the one at school. we have windows 98 at school(with some running 95) mostly, so computers are crashing and restarting constantly. also, teachers bring in their own laptops and connect to the network (although wired) so they might think its just a teacher using the wifi. not to mention, our school has more than 3600 kids in it, good luck finding me :lol:

[Darius Wey]

its not the proxy thing, i get im not connected to the net error, not a proxy error. i was at a dell direct store today and they had wifi at their little stand thing, but that required a proxy, and the error was not the same as the one at school. we have windows 98 at school(with some running 95) mostly, so computers are crashing and restarting constantly. also, teachers bring in their own laptops and connect to the network (although wired) so they might think its just a teacher using the wifi. not to mention, our school has more than 3600 kids in it, good luck finding me :lol:

When you say you get a net connection error, do you mean you can find the wireless network, connect to it just fine, but can't browse the net, or do you mean you can find the wireless network and just can't connect to it altogether?

[nuka_t]

no, it connects and everything, the internet just dosent work. the same thing that happened with the dell at the store, except i get the same error i get when wifi is turned off, not the proxy error i got at dell.

[Darius Wey]

Okay, and you get no prompts for a WEP or WPA key when you connect?

[nuka_t]

no.

[Darius Wey]

Do you have a laptop with wireless capabilities? If you do, try using that to connect one day and see what happens. I'd be interested to see whether or not the problems you are having are localised to your PPC device.

[nuka_t]

no, no laptop.

but you can lend me yours :mrgreen:

another thing i thought it could possibly be is that someone has a wifi pda and leaves the wifi on all day, and it makes an ad-hoc network instead, without internet access. but that would mean that their ppc is on all day. that cant be possible. maybe a teachers laptop?

[Darius Wey]

no, no laptop.

but you can lend me yours :mrgreen:

Haha...that's funny. The Dell guy still hasn't knocked on my front door yet though. :mrgreen:

another thing i thought it could possibly be is that someone has a wifi pda and leaves the wifi on all day, and it makes an ad-hoc network instead, without internet access. but that would mean that their ppc is on all day. that cant be possible. maybe a teachers laptop?

Perhaps that could be it. Although maybe it's more the laptop (or perhaps even a desktop) than the PPC otherwise the PPC would have its battery flat within a couple of hours.

Are you able to pick up this wireless signal everywhere or only in a certain part of the school?

[David Prahl]

My guess is that you're connected to the network perfectly but the wireless access point doesn't connect to the Internet. I've found networks like that before (even scan an Office Depot?).

Sounds like your school needs a few goods nerds. You might considering asking for an Independant Study. You fix up PCs, you get credit, you get a job someday. Worked for me! :D

[gregh2000]

or maybe the access point isn't connected to the internet, some sort of private network, or someone just plugged in the power and no net, lol