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304 Part III — More Complex Interfacing

easy as plugging in a USB cable. But this method can be difficult in software due to driver
issues. Not all wireless routers have USB ports; usually just the higher-end or more portable
ones do. Some of the routers with USB that people have reported success with are:

Linksys WRTSL54GS
Asus WL-500G, WL-500GD
Asus WL-700E
Asus WL-HDD

Asus is a bit over-represented in that list. Recently they seem to have taken the torch from
Linksys in being a more hacker-friendly company. The Linksys WRTSL54GS is a great box
and will be used in the next chapter. For this project, the Asus WL-HDD will be used.

Asus WL-HDD

The WL-HDD is a really interesting device (see Figure 14-2). On the one hand, it is a Wi-Fi
access point. On the other hand, it’s a hard drive box for any 2.5˝ IDE hard drive. Instead of
connecting to the hard drive via USB or Firewire, you connect to it via Ethernet or Wi-Fi.
And others can connect to it, too. In a pinch it works as a network hub and file server for a
small group of people. It also has a USB host port for attaching a USB thumb flash drive. It’s
as big as a paperback novel and draws less than 500 mA of current. To run all these peripherals,
the WL-HDD has a 125 MHz Broadcom MIPS CPU, 16 MB of RAM, and 4 MB of flash
ROM for its firmware. It costs about $80 and is pretty much the perfect hacker toy.

FIGURE 14-2: Asus WL-HDD, about as big as a 3.5˝ hard drive