Access Point Hosts Range?

Here is the scenario

Joe User is about 75 meters from his Wireless Access Point/Gateway that has a range of 100 meters.
Attacker is about 50 meters from the wireless Access Point/Gateway on the side opposite Joe User.

Both Joe and Attacker are within range of the access point. However, Joe and Attacker are 125 meters from each other.

It would be possible for Attacker to break into/attack the access point... but he would not be able to break into/attack Joe User because he is out of range.

The reason I say this is... the only time traffic goes through the gateway is if it is leaving the local network. Only goes through the gateway if it going out to the internet. Or, since the Wireless Access Point/Gateway is providing the link to the network... would it forward the traffic between Joe User and Attacker?

I'm not on a wireless network at the moment to test this...

I'll attach a pic to give a visual representation of my scenario.

It would be possible for him to attack the computer. People seem to over complicate wireless networks. Thinkof it as a noraml LAN. As long as both are on the network they can attack eachother. The only time the range between them would make a difference would be if it were an ADHOC network where the computers are connecting to one another rather than a central point like a router/hub/switch.

attackers computer doent know where joes computer is but it kows that he can ask the access point and the access point will know how ot get to the computer and will forward the packet like normal. wireless does not change the way a network works on the higher layers of the OSI model, it just changes level 1 (physical layer) so all traffic is handled the same way (with the exception of encryption/decryption via WEP or WPA which is done before and after the network connection is even an issue)

Ah ok, I was kind of thinking along those lines.

I was just getting ad hoc mixed up with infrastructure mode.

The way I have my home LAN configured... the router/gateway isn't involved because I have another switch that takes care of that. In the wireless instance... the AP is the switch.

Thanks for clearing that up.

right, packets are still fliwing to and from the AP, attacking packets to the joe user would be routed from the switch to the access point.

Same thing could theorhetically happen through a vpn miles away.

the AP/gateway still acts as a switch for the internal LAN, just as if everything was wired instead of wireless. Wireless just provides another means to connect to the gateway/switch instead of wired