Tethering APs

[freemyggle]

Is there a program that allows the NIC to grab a signal from multiple APs simultaneously? Im currently @ a friend's and though there are a few different AP's in the area with no security, the distance from them to me is too great and my bandwidth through an AP is not enough to support something like watching a YouTube video. I figure that if I can use a broader foot print, i.e. connect to a few different AP's at the same time, there'd be enough throughput to support this kind of activity.

Anyone know of a program that can manage my NIC this way?

[Thorn]

First, what you want to happen, won't work. Bandwidth aggregation won't work across multiple APs unless there is a common aggregation controller behind them.

Secondly, and more importantly, if you don't have permission to be on an AP, by accessing it you're committing a crime. In some states within the US, such access is a felony. The lack of any security settings on the AP doesn't matter; whether or not you have permission does matter.

[freemyggle]

In my city, the entire downtown section is freely broadcast to the public, same thing in the University section. I fully and completely comprehend the position that Backtrack Forums and all of it's members maintain with regard to compliance and morality, and it is not my intention to violate anyone's AP. I was just trying to think outside of the box a bit and was hoping someone beat me to the punch and made a program that could manage such a task.

BTW, learning about computers is only a secondary hobby of mine, but I absolutely love researching just about any form of law. Could you point me in the direction (preferably within the U.S.C. or C.F.R.) where internet trafficing laws are codified? Thanks in advance.

[Thorn]

In my city, the entire downtown section is freely broadcast to the public, same thing in the University section. I fully and completely comprehend the position that Backtrack Forums and all of it's members maintain with regard to compliance and morality, and it is not my intention to violate anyone's AP. I was just trying to think outside of the box a bit and was hoping someone beat me to the punch and made a program that could manage such a task.

OK, so it sounds like you're legal.

What an aggregation unit does is take several different connections into one. You'd actually need a box with multiple WLAN NICs that would then pipe it all into your PC. No one makes such a box.

Really, you'd be better off just fitting a higher gain antenna into the NIC.

BTW, learning about computers is only a secondary hobby of mine, but I absolutely love researching just about any form of law. Could you point me in the direction (preferably within the U.S.C. or C.F.R.) where internet trafficing laws are codified? Thanks in advance.

U.S.C. Title 18, Part I, Chapter 47 § 1030 is the section that covers fraudulent and illegal use of computer under US Federal law.
Cornell Law School has it online here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html

As for individual state laws, I'll let you research them on your own. Most are online, although some are easier to find than others.