Comment 22 for bug 57626

Frank: I found a way to spoof a wireless interface. Download the fake-wireless file (it's a copy of my /proc/net/wireless, with the eth1 entry duplicated as fake eth0 and lo entries), put it in /tmp, then run

   sudo mount --bind /tmp/fake-wireless /proc/net/wireless
   killall gnome-netstatus-applet

Now if you select 'eth0', 'eth1' or 'lo' in the applet ('lo' will always be available, even if you have no network cards), it will think this is is a wireless interface and show the signal strength bar.

You can open the /tmp/fake-wireless file in a text editor and change the link quality column manually to see the various signal strength icons. A value of 1 gives me 1 bar, a value of 5 gives me 2 bars, a value of 10 gives me 3 bars, and a value of 30 (or higher) all 4 bars.

When you're done, remove the spoofed file with

   sudo umount -l /tmp/fake-wireless
   killall gnome-netstatus-applet

a reboot will also remove the spoof.