Can't access an unsecure router?

[LsD]

Hey all,
I've recently acquired a laptop so I've taken to wireless hacking pretty quickly. However, I'm experiencing a strange error when trying to connect to an access point that I previously had access to. Each time I try to connect to the access point( which no longer has any security at all) Wicd can't obtain an IP address and the connection is refused. I figure the situation could be one of the following:
a.) MAC filtering --> unlikely seeing as they had WEP and factory default admin panel username/password
b.) Fake Access Point attack --> Just as unlikely
c.) Some inexplicable difficulty resolving IP addresses?

Out of those scenarios, I think A is the most likely of these unlikely scenarios. If that is it, then it's a simple fix, just sniff the network with airodump-ng and wireshark then when a client successfully connects and spoof his MAC address, right?

If I'm missing something, or I'm completely off the mark, I'd appreciate it if you could help me out here because despite the fact there are plenty of other APs within range I've been playing with, not being able to figure out why I can't connect to this one particular AP is making me really curious and annoyed

Thanks in advance!

[Architect]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=What+is+a+honeypot

[ThePH30N1X]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=What+is+a+honeypot

This doesn't answer his question in the slightest.

[LsD]

The second scenario i described was a honeypot, but knowing the residential neighbourhood I was in, I find it highly unlikely that they set up a honeypot.

[Recon]

I believe that Architect is suggesting that the AP is a honeypot. As far as I know, that would generally only apply to a corporate or commercial setting, not residential, but the OP doesn't say which type he was accessing.

Also, I don't know much about IPs, but I do know that sometimes dynamically assigned IPs can misbehave all by themselves without any changes being made (at least not that the end-user is otherwise aware of). Short of resetting the AP, the only thing that I've found to help with this is to reset the laptop by rebooting. Other than that, you could check into the process underlying the assignment of IPs to your device. It's probably something with that, given your apparent certainty that the owner of the AP has done nothing to improve their security.

Of course, you could be wrong, and failure is always an option.

EDIT: Yes, since you're in a residential neighborhood, I'd agree that it's unlikely.

EDIT 2: Unless you're dealing with another hacker or someone of similar skill who deliberately left it open, hoping you'd come along so they could play ball with you and do some counter-hacking.

[LsD]

Ok thanks for clarifying that to me, I'm hoping to start learning Java soon because I'm really interested in coding drive-by malware for Android once I've got a handle on mobile hacking & Java-- so I'm pretty familiar with the concept of fake APs.

[Architect]

I didn't have a clue as to the context in which he wrote this, so I assumed it was corporate.
Muh bad.

[Kulverstukas]

It is likely they put up a MAC filter, so only the selected hardware have access to that AP. This judging from the symptoms you mentioned, and it's fairly easy to set up, so it is likely even in residential area.

[techb]

Have you looked at your network settings? If you where able to connect to it before, and it previously had a password on it, the network manager is probably trying to still connect with the password under whatever encryption it was using.

Check how it is trying to connect and then report back. All else fails, "forget" the network and freshly connect.

[proxx]

WICD sucks
Try wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd or dhclient.
At least with wpa_supplicant you can establish the connection first.
If dhcpcd or dhclient fails to obtain an IP address you can use an ARP tool like netdiscover to find out what and who is on the network.
Manually setting an IP address that is likely to be in the pool will likely allow you to ping the gateway.
Manually set a route with ; route add default gw some.ip.address.here
This should get you out to the next hop.

Let me know, we'll  walk through this if it doesnt work out.