How do you find out if neighbors are using your wireless internet ?

[kariatari]

Just curious. It happened to a friend of mine. He had NINE other computers using his service. I have a sneaking suspicion it could be happening to me because my connection is super slow.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. How did your friend find out? n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Log all connections to the router/access point.

And to prevent anyone from using your connection, use WEP encrypted passkey and limit the access control list to the MAC addresses of machines in your network.

[Catch22Dem]

3. kariatari, listen to this Spider

Absolutely right. Don't ever leave your router wide open. Set up wireless security. It sounds big and scary, but it's really just a couple of clicks. Get those freeloaders off your connection!

[Misunderestimator]

4. The easiest thing to do is restrict your wireless network....

to only the MAC addresses of the wireless cards that will be accessing the network, by enabling the MAC Filter. I have three addresses in my configuration, and no other computer can access it.

You should also set WEP Encryption on.

[Ladyhawk]

5. Damn, it's a good reason NOT to go wireless. I'm staying wired. n/t

[Misunderestimator]

6. You can easily restrict access.

[Ladyhawk]

8. I guess that's the truth...only allow certain IP addresses.

I forgot everything I learned about subnet masking, though. :D

[Misunderestimator]

9. You can restrict your wireless to the actual physical MAC address

of the wireless card itself, which is unique.

The ip address thing is not as easy, actually, especially if your ISP assigns them on the fly. You would still have to allow a range of IPs in that case, and open yourself up again.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Not IP addressess, MAC addresses.

That way access is tied to the wireless card/network card and you can still use DHCP.

[Ladyhawk]

11. Oh, yeah. :D Each NIC has a unique MAC. n/t

[AndyP]

7. Yeah fix it, here's why

You really don't have to worry about this rarity, but if something illegal were to happen (kiddy porn, virus launch) done by a person using your connection, they would trace the IP back to the rounter (you). Not that you'd be held responsible but I'm sure you don't need anything like that in your life

[pitohui]

13. you could well be held responsible

don't see how you could prove it didn't happen

had a case in britain where 3 men after mucho expenditure of defense lawyers were able to show that the kiddy porn downloaded to their computer wasn't theirs, but most of us don't have several million dollars to spend on our defense

i've never heard of anyone in the usa being exonerated and you can be confident that just as much kiddy porn is being downloaded to OPC (other people's computers) as anywhere else on the planet

instead i hear of people going to jail all the time for kiddie porn it sounds highly unlikely they had anything to do w.

[frylock]

12. check your dhcp table..

find out if your router is issuing IP addys to computers that don't reside on your network. Of course, if they're really clever they'll just manually assign themselves an IP from within your routers scope. That's what I've done when piggybacking my neighbors connections in the past. =]

As has been suggeseted, you should set up WEP and an access control list (ACL) with the MAC IDs from the PCS on your network.

[NMMNG]

14. Get security if you have wireless

At both of my jobs there are wireless networks in the vicinity. If I had the druthers and a wireless thingie I could tap into their networks free of charge. However I'm not like that, plus I already have my own regular service so why would I bother to do something illegal and unethical like that? :shrug: