Can anyone suggest a wireless network card for a mobile laptop for wireless pen testing (including capture and cracking)?  There are several chipsets/cards available that work with most of the free tools out there, but just curious if a few stood above the rest?

I second that recommendation, also available at http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?products_id=665 (no affiliation).

-Josh

One more note...I have to say...I do like the Alpha...I ve used it too but I hate trying to wardrive with that clunker sticking from the side of my laptop...but I have used it for wireless pentesting in a VM... but thats another thread!! Long story short... they are both very good cards...depends on what you want to use them for.

Yup, and gobs of outdated and insecure equipment still in use. Just take a look at TJX.

I am going to have to agree. I just got the Alfa about a week ago and it amazing. Fully supports injection, monitor mode, etc.. Highly recommended!

I have a Garmin GPS18 usb puck.   It works very well with gpsd with BAcktrack 3.  OWSA Assistant identifies it just fine, though for some mystifying reason, that live distro seems to lack gpsd.     This unit, however is borked under Backtrack 4 beta, as that distro (and its parent distro, apparently) have omitted the garmin_gps kernel driver from the distro due to some concerns over the security by which that driver leverages the USB bus, or some such.   

Edit:   It's in there.  you just need to do the following post-insertion:
modprobe garmin_gps
mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb


If you're buying a new GPS receiver for your laptop, one that connects via bluetooth might be worth considering, as with wireless testing, you seem to be plenty tethered already between antennae and power cords for the laptop.  One less just makes it easier to be nimble, or less of a pain in the butt working in the confines of a car.  I can get a specific recommendation out of a coworker who has a deliciously small bluetooth gps receiver that reportedly works well with gpsd under Linux. 

As for my rig, I have a ubiquity SRC http://ubnt.com/products/src.php  (300mW, b/g/a, dual mmcx connectors with diversity tuners) but that Alfa  usb card looks like something to have for sure.  500mW plus the ability to run under vmware is certainly handy.   I have an Elcom 15dbi radome enclosed yaggi that fits in checked luggage easily, and as an 18" white cylinder is not terribly suspicious looking in a car (particularly in the cardboard box it comes in) versus something that looks very plainly like an antenna.  Elcom also has a 15dBi omni that's worth considering. 

One other neat idea for wireless pentesting I recently picked up was to have a trio of identitical USB connected cards tuned to channels 1, 6, and 11.    This makes channel hopping largely something you don't have to deal with, as with the overlapping of other channels, you pick up the stuff in the middle, yet converge faster in a drive around since you're not having to hop.  kismet has no trouble keeping up with the 3 sources.   Hawking makes a USB card that uses ralink drivers and has an external antenna (rp-sma I think), costs about $40 and is sold at Microcenter.    You'd still want, however, a high powered card for injection and deauth attacking, but a trio of those low costs things does make the passive sniffing part a bit quicker if you like.   

 

I am writing an article that I hope will change that. Believe it or not most "advanced" hackers I talk to don't even use Backtrack. 

I know Cain & Abel suggest AirPcap but can this device be used with it as well?