Why can I sniff 802.11g with my 802.11b card?

[RoadClosed]

Analyzing:

Both B and G use the same frequency, which has been noted. It is 2.45 Gighertz located in the LSM band. ALL packets must be included in this band.

B uses a media access similar to Ethernet CSMA/CA. That like Ethernet is in the firmware not in the OS or driver software. Lower level stuff. B divides the radio spectrum into 14 to 22 overlapping channels; depending on what country you are in. They overlap because they are not all used at once. (Anything over 14 is NON-standard)

G operates in the same band uses the same transfer methods (DSSS and HR-DSSS) same media access and adds one transfer method for A (OFDM). It uses the same security measures as B (WEP) then adds some depending on hardware (AES or Wi-Fi protected access). It uses all the same frequencies, so in essence there is not much of a difference so far…. And no reason why you can’t sniff packets, in essence it is exactly the same….

So I am digging through tech. Documents my guess is there is not much of a difference at all and they merely bond more channels together and switch the data rate faster on the link. But that is a wild ass guess.

B can see G because it's the SAME lacking certain channels at random. (another SWAG until confimed)

\\EDIT It's acctually the way the radio is Keyed. Keying a radio is like hiting the talk button on a walkie-talkie. Only in hispeed data this happens VERY fast and is related to the data transmitted. Meaning it's part of the intelligence mechanism and it too trasmits part of the puzzle, not just the modulation schema along with channel hopping. So as these key sequences come in alliance with the B mechanism you will see random bits of data but not all data. Hope that helps muddle things up more.

[THEJRC]

most implimentations of G transmit using multiple channels, so you are most likely able to sniff *some if not all of the transmission due to this fact. If your channel hopping and your delay is short enough you can feasibly pick up quite a bit of G traffic.

Whether the vendor implementation encodes the data is another story, but this is most likely why your picking up the traffic