Posts by Jack Cook7

Jack Alvarez said:Thanks for the heads-up, but honestly, this might actually help me limit my teenager's WiFi access... my goal is to have WiFi running for everything else in the house, but I don't want her jumping on it with her phone... unless there's a smarter way to do it. Basically, I figured she'd have to "crack" the router password to change settings or somehow sniff out which MAC addresses are allowed so she could spoof them on her iPhone (is that even doable)? She’s not exactly a tech wizard, but she did manage to Google how to find the WiFi password on a laptop that was already connected because she needed it for school

Android + Tapatalk

😂

Way to go, kiddo! 👍 (We're all rooting for the future internet guru whose evil dad is trying to stifle her genius 🤣 )

Look, we're talking about two totally different security concepts here.

1. First, you've got whoever manages the router itself and where they do it from. That's administrative access to the hardware.

2. Then you've got who has permission to actually use the router to get onto the internet (and how much). That's basically the passage rights dictated by the person in category #1.

So, you're really looking at at least two layers of security:
- admin-level
- user-level

There's more to it, but I won't bore you with the long version.

MAC filtering is just one tiny piece of the puzzle, and I'm not even sure if it's actually what you're looking for.

Not me.

But hey, I can definitely quote this:

Jack Cook7
Just because it's there doesn't mean WPA2 can't be cracked pretty fast.

William Palmer7
, if it has nothing to do with the password and we're talking about a design flaw that "relatively quickly" and reliably "breaks" WPA2. Either way, it isn't public knowledge yet.

The differences are obvious.

Alright, let's just kick off a whole new thread about WPA2 and what actually goes into it.

By the way, does anyone actually know why Cisco dropped support for PSK on their VPN client like ten years ago? Was it L2TP/IPsec, IPsec, or what? And don't even get me started on the issues with going through NAT.

William Palmer7 said:Whether the passphrase can be cracked? Depends.

It really all comes down to what kind of password someone actually typed in.

But I’m talking about the actual WPA2 protocol itself, not just some guy setting his password to "12345678."

I was saying the same thing about WEP—it took those self-proclaimed "experts" four whole years to "fix" it after some Russian mathematician realized within seconds that the whole thing was full of holes.

Using MAC lockdown is just a little extra helper for when you're dealing with something more serious and want to put an extra limit on who can jump on the network.

The real question, though, is if you're running WPA2, whether the Mac WiFi client's MAC address is even visible to a sniffer.

If you're relying solely on a MAC filter, that's amateur hour. Literally anyone with even a tiny bit of sniffing knowledge can bypass that in sixty seconds flat.

The bottom line is this:

Jack Cook7
Watch out—MAC filtering isn't the bulletproof shield you think it is.
https://www.howtogeek.com/204458/why...-wi-fi-router/

Look, don't just rely on a Local ACL. You absolutely have to pair it with WPA2-PSK (PreShared-Key) if you actually want some protection.

Sure, this setup looks fine for a basic home network. But let's be real—even WPA2 can get cracked pretty fast if someone's really trying.

Christian Perez5 said:Got it—I'll give that a shot if it pops up again.

Using shift+ctrl+windows+B basically just resets the DWM service (the desktop window manager).

https://superuser.com/questions/1127...-do-in-windows
According to a chat with an AMD Radeon driver engineer, this doesn't actually restart the graphics driver itself. It seems to just ditch the desktop surface buffer and force DWM to recreate the allocation—which is why on a working system, your screen just flashes black for a second.

So, the effect is kind of like restarting the whole machine, but without the actual reboot—you're just refreshing the video buffer. Honestly? This isn't gonna be a permanent fix for your problem.

Have you tried messing with the resolution or the refresh rate on your graphics card yet? Or maybe just nuking the video driver and doing a clean reinstall?

Jack Alvarez said:Man, if you could just walk me through exactly how to pull this off, I’d really appreciate it!

I can give it a shot.

Your standard WiFi security is basically built on the WPA2 protocol—think of it as the combo of authentication and encryption. But honestly? If someone grabs your password and messes with a few settings, they’re getting in.

The easiest way to shut that down is to go into your AP and whitelist specific WiFi MAC addresses for the devices you actually want on your network.

First thing's first: you gotta hunt down those MAC addresses. Here’s how you do it:
https://kb.netgear.com/1005/How-do-I...-s-MAC-address
Usually, you can even find them slapped right on the sticker on the device itself.

Once you’ve got those addresses, hop into your AP configuration. This part gets a little tricky depending on what hardware you're running. Here’s an example using a NETGEAR setup:
https://kb.netgear.com/000053884/How...ACL-in-Insight

Don't worry about setting up a whole RADIUS server; you just need the physical Local ACL (Local access) list.
Just pop open that window and type in the addresses you want to let through.

There’s also an "inverse" way to do it—a Deny list—if you specifically want to block one annoying device from connecting.

Found this older article too. They usually call it MAC filtering, or sometimes people refer to it as a "lockdown."
https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/wi...t-in-10-steps/

And here’s the reverse trick, if you want to force a client to connect to one specific AP when they see multiple options.
https://superuser.com/questions/2651...ic-mac-address

Fair warning though: MAC filtering isn't bulletproof. Check out the downsides here:
https://www.howtogeek.com/204458/why...-wi-fi-router/

Bottom line? Don't rely solely on a MAC ACL. You absolutely need to have WPA2-PSK (PreShared-Key) running alongside it.

Jack Alvarez said:Hey guys, is there any way to actually limit how many devices connect to my WiFi? Like, if I want to hard-set it so only two specific devices can get on, and nobody else can jump on even if they somehow guess the password?

Yeah, you can totally do that.

The easiest way is to just whitelist the specific MAC addresses of your clients right on the Access Point.

Look, that router belongs to the ISP. Per the service agreement, everything tied to it is totally their responsibility and on their dime.

If your provider won't let you run stuff like a VPN, honestly, just ditch them for another company. Or better yet, just grab your own router and configure whatever the hell you want.

William Palmer7 said:I have a computer connected to the internet (obviously), so there's no escaping the bill for me.
Thanks All.

Well, yes and no.

Basically, this whole law was drafted by some greedy morons. And you know what greedy morons have in common? They’re just greedy morons. Period. 🤣

(For those who know exactly what I'm talking about)

The point is, the actual facts don't matter—only what's on paper. Like, if you have a TV registered to your household that you never even touch, just grab a hammer, smash it, take it to a repair shop to get a "broken" receipt, and use that to cancel your "TV tax." Boom. Done.

It doesn't matter if you actually have a massive server farm in your basement streaming a reality show about three goldfish in a bowl. Totally irrelevant.

Bottom line? This law is a total joke. It was written by greedy idiots, just like everything else in this country.

William Palmer7 said:Wait, I didn't realize streaming counted toward the bill?
Well, if you've got a computer and an internet connection, you're going to have to pay for it too.

Yep.

Honestly, when you actually read the law, it’s a total mess. It makes zero sense.

If a household has:
- a TV set
- a radio
- a computer with an internet connection
- a smartphone

They have to pay one "fee." Just one per household, no matter how many devices they own.

But companies/legal entities? They have to pay for EVERY SINGLE DEVICE.

Man, just picture this: every employee at a company usually has a laptop, a phone, a car with a radio, and then there's always that presentation PC hooked up to a big screen in the conference room. That means every single worker would technically owe about 3 or 4 TV "fees." Now imagine a company with 100 people. They'd be paying roughly 400 fees. So, 400 x $80 equals $11 a month. 🤣

I mean, let's look at what companies actually pay. Where is the massive bill for someone like Walmart? Or even say Berkshire Hathaway and all those other businesses owned by New York City, which employ around 24,000 people?

And don't even get me started on how modern fridges and irons are all connected via the Internet of Things. Technically, that means you should be paying a TV fee for your fridge and your iron.

Back when they tried to tax blank CDs and USB sticks because of the "possibility" of recording audio or video, we all just laughed it off—until Sony Music started thriving off a bunch of useless parasites. Now? It isn't funny anymore.

Alright, let's start with the basics here.
1. Is the user making this bootable USB for their own rig or for a different machine entirely?

The BIOS isn't actually hunting for an MBR. It just grabs whatever is sitting on sector 1 based on how the disk controller presents it. I’ve been booting drives larger than 2TB for ages without even touching UEFI, though honestly, I ran into some massive headaches with anything over 2GB back in the day—even when the PC's BIOS and the OS were totally fine with much bigger capacities.

And then there's the whole saga involving those ST506 and ST412 interfaces. I’m pretty sure you guys know exactly why they matter so much for getting UEFI (or PXE) up and running.

That’s exactly what I’m getting at. We could sit here all day doing a deep dive into forty years of boot sequences—I mean, we could go way back to when you were manually toggling switches on a front panel just to program the bits, though I’ll spare us the lecture since I haven't actually rolled up my sleeves for that specific era myself! But honestly? We’re basically flying blind because the client's description is so vague. All we can really gather is that they’ve spent some time building boot environments for a massive variety of hardware, but that’s about it.

And don't even get me started on Secure Boot and how Microsoft uses their own logic to basically lock out the competition.

So many different versions out there.

Basically, MBR doesn't mean anything other than the actual content—that little bit of assembly code—sitting on sector 1 of the hard drive. That’s where the IBM BIOS hands over the keys after the POST. It literally just grabs sector 1 (512 bytes, no ECC included) and dumps it into some part of the RAM, and then the very last instruction in the POST is just a jump straight to that first line of code it just loaded.

Man, things have gotten way more complicated over the last 40 years, thanks to guys like Bill Gates, IBM, and Intel. If I really wanted to break it all down for you, I’d need like three pages of dense, rambling text. I actually touched on a piece of this when I was explaining booting via a network card using >.

My advice? First, figure out what version of USB ports you're dealing with on both the source and the destination machine, and check which USB version your flash drive actually uses. Most PCs and laptops nowadays have a mix of 2.0 and 3.0.
Once we know that, then we can get into the weeds.

Also, just a heads up: EFI isn't the same thing as UEFI. UEFI supports MBR, FAT16, FAT32, and even MFT, but like I said... things are getting messy.

Kenneth Cruz67 said:No biggie. You just make a UEFI Bootable USB. Every single time. 😁

So yeah, forget about MBR. But the real question is whether that actually works on a different machine, especially when you start messing with different USB ports or different thumb drives.

We really need to clear this up.

The Windows 10 Media creation tool doesn't exactly "match" different hardware setups; it basically builds it for its own specific way of doing things, and everything else is just some partially supported variation.

Watch your step here so you don't end up making a massive mess of things.

Here’s how I see your setup coming together:
1. Building A
- A 4G provider
- A local Wi-Fi access point and/or some LAN gear
- A transmitter and an antenna

2. Building B
- A transmitter and an antenna
- A local Wi-Fi access point and/or some LAN gear

3. You absolutely have to keep that Fresnel zone clear between Building A and Building B. We're talking about an 18-degree line of sight.

Listen, if you aren't using directional antennas, you aren't going to hit that distance. And honestly, the worse that Fresnel zone looks, the more you're gonna need those highly directional antennas. Just a heads up though—using outdoor directional antennas can be a total pain when it comes to lightning grounding.

Stay away from amplifiers. Don't use them for receiving, and for sending? That's straight-up illegal under FCC rules.

If you can check off points 1 through 3 for me, then we can actually start crunching the numbers.

Also, just so you know, the gear at site 1 and site 2 doesn't have to be the exact same hardware. You don't need to go out and buy five different gadgets unless you're counting the antennas.

Wait, hold up—is the user making the Bootable USB on this machine or a different one?

If they’re using a different PC, which makes total sense, then those USB parameters are just carrying over from the other computer. They really need to match the target device perfectly.

We’re still stuck on that whole issue of getting the USB port parameters and the flash drive to actually play nice together.

Did you double-check which USB stick version and what kind of port you're using?

Man, I’ve run into so many headaches with booting and installing when those two don't match up. It wasn't until I finally got a USB 2.0 stick paired with the right port that everything actually worked in MBR mode. Before that, I swear I had to mash my keyboard during every single install, messing with the boot settings like ten times just to find the one combo that actually worked. It was honestly just a frantic race against the clock to hit the right keys at the right time!