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Wireless Routers

asthmatic camel

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I recently bought a wireless router in order to set up a home network, and took the necessary steps to secure it. Amazingly, when I scan for available wireless network connections, I find three that are always on, and which I can use freely.

Presumably, these belong to neighbours who don't know what they're doing. I'm considering cancelling my contract with NTL and using these suckers' connections for nothing!

Aren't they leaving themselves wide open to some potentially very serious problems?
 
Can you actually connect and download stuff ? Because I think that with some encryptions you can connect but the connection will keep dropping every few seconds.
 
Yep, I can download stuff and use the connections as though they were my own. Windows shows them as "unsecured wireless networks".
 
asthmatic camel said:
Aren't they leaving themselves wide open to some potentially very serious problems?
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Definitely. And so will you be if you knowingly use their connection since it's been ruled illegal in the UK (assume that's where you are since you mentioned NTL).

It's incredible just how many unsecured wireless networks there are around. There are even people that travel around seeking them out (called "wardriving") just to get a free ride, and if they use that connection to visit illegal sites etc. then it's the victim's IP address that will be traced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving
 
That must be considered very "unsafe sex". They are crazy. However, using them is still theft. Just because your neighboor is silly enough to leave his door open, you are still not allowed to walk away with his things.

Now, if they have a flat-rate connection, they may think that they loose nothing, except perhaps some bandwidth, but if somebody (present company excluded, of course) starts to download pirated music or kiddie porn over their connection, they can get into serious trouble.

Hans

ETA: I see Diabolos wrote essentialle the same thing while I was typing :).
 
I'd kind of guessed that using someone else's connection might be against the law but wasn't sure, so thanks for that. As it happens, I'm not interested in getting a free ride or downloading illegal stuff, but it just struck me that maybe warnings should be prominent on the packaging of these things.

You wouldn't want Genghis Pwn using your unsecured wireless connection, would you?

ETA, I didn't notice for a while that my PC was automatically using these connections whenever my own was down for some reason. Now, I wasn't "knowingly" doing this, but shouldn't Micro$oft be doing something about this, as it would be difficult to prove in court whether I knew or not, wouldn't it?
 
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asthmatic camel said:
I'd kind of guessed that using someone else's connection might be against the law but wasn't sure, so thanks for that. As it happens, I'm not interested in getting a free ride or downloading illegal stuff, but it just struck me that maybe warnings should be prominent on the packaging of these things.
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It does say in the manual that you should set encryption.

You wouldn't want Genghis Pwn using your unsecured wireless connection, would you?
Click to expand...

:eek: :boggled: :eye-poppi :faint: :shocked: :yikes: :curse

ETA, I didn't notice for a while that my PC was automatically using these connections whenever my own was down for some reason. Now, I wasn't "knowingly" doing this, but shouldn't Micro$oft be doing something about this, as it would be difficult to prove in court whether I knew or not, wouldn't it?
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Well, I hardly think that you could be punished as long as you didn't use the connection for something illegal. Problem is if Genghis Pwn was also on the line :eek:.

But all, in all, I think they would have to prove that you did something illegal, and that you intentionally used the connection. Of course, unintentionally using it is still not legal, but the consequences have to be very limited. Like taking the wrong coat in a wardrobe.

Hans
 
I've set up several wireless networks for friends and family. The first time I was working on the router upstairs when the friend walked in and said "hey, thanks for setting that all up, I'm online". I was a bit taken aback, as the router was still sitting on the floor amidst the packing material, unplugged, and I was trying to run a USB cable through the rats nest of cables hooked up to his desktop. I mentioned that the company must be doing a hellofa job to build such a marvel. Some quick investigation revealed a neighbor a few houses down had a wireless setup with a very generic name, and my friend had assumed it was the correct one.

The second setup was similar. In fact, the router I set up showed up second on the network list, as the guy in the next apartment had a stronger signal.

I was pleasantly surprised when I set up my home network. One other network on the list, telling me "no free rides".

In both other cases the friends mentioned to the neighbors that their networks were open doors.
 
Tirdun said:
In both other cases the friends mentioned to the neighbors that their networks were open doors.
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I hope they did this the fun way - browse their network to find a shared printer and print out a warning in 72pt impact... repeated...
 
Ha!

You know, I was going to get a wireless router just in case I ever needed it for a laptop or something. You know what? Not anymore! I'm just going to stick with wired for now on.
 
She who must be obeyed was recently horrified when I switched on her wifi enabled laptop in her living room and found an unsecured network in the house across the street.
Two teenage boys. We discreetly withdrew.

I then checked the encryption on my own wifi net, (40 miles away) and found the default router settings were not a great deal better.

Yes. There should be more prominent warnings on the box or in the setup manuals.
 
I myself run an unsecure network, and I don't care. I highly doubt I need to worry about people within 50 meters of my router. If something is traced to me, I only need point out that I'm using an open connection and thus they at least need to expand their "net" to people within that radius.

Why do I do that? It's nice to just pop open any wireless device and be able to instantly connect to the network without going through the same tired old 3000 character long password input procedure. When the risks outweigh my own sloth, THEN I'll worry about it. As it is, the wifi part of my router is "seperate" from the wired network so I don't need to worry about people snooping around my files or using my printer.

Looking into my wifi router, I often see a neighber using it, possibly by accident, as that person's network is also unsecure.
 
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My bf recently bought a PC with wifi installed. It picked up a network from the flat upstairs. The oldish lady who lived there was duly informed. Amazing thing is, she had been wondering why she kept hitting her bandwidth limit so quickly... and hadn't done anything about it. The bf being the kind geek that he is sorted it out for her, she'd been downloading 5gb a day (alledgedly), her limit was 20gb a month!
 
DJ- You are probably right at the moment, but as the use of wifi increases, the probability of someone abusing your network connection is likely to increase.
After the initial router setup, it only takes entry of an 8 letter key to install a new machine on my network. I'm using WEP encryption ,which is not the most secure, but it's primarily the casual , often accidental eavesdropper I want to avoid - of which we have several examples in this thread alone.

Also the sort of twit willing to drive around logging onto peoples' networks is, by definition, unlikely to be benign. If someone like that uses your connection even once, you could find you have problems out of all proportion to the cost of prevention.
If ten minutes setting up can move him on, it's like taking time to put a chain on the door- a small investment given the potential for damage.

You know your own situation best, but my advice is to set up some security.
 
I guess I'm a bit more paranoid than the rest of you. I use WPA encryption and have access control turned on (limits which MAC addresses can connect to my router). Nobody is going to get a free ride off me thank you very much. :)
 
I recently went wireless through British Telecom. The router they provided has an encryption key (WEP) on the bottom that has to be typed in to access the network. Is that secure enough or can someone bypass that if they know how?
 
I don't even have a cordless phone. I don't trust this newfangled technology, consarn it. Sending messages through the air? Demonic, no doubt!
 
I run WEP encryption and MAC allowances, and it isn't that difficult to set up. The pass keys are 10 characters long, or you can set up WPA access that uses a passkey you create. If you have rugrats with Nintendo DS's, then you'll be running the WEP protocol, since DS supports it.
 
Tirdun said:
I run WEP encryption and MAC allowances, and it isn't that difficult to set up. The pass keys are 10 characters long, or you can set up WPA access that uses a passkey you create. If you have rugrats with Nintendo DS's, then you'll be running the WEP protocol, since DS supports it.
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Actually, the DS is aimed at adult gamers.

Rugrats indeed (mutter mutter)

Why else would I have gone wireless?


*goes and cuddles her DS*
 
tk- I think you're fine unless you have a reason to suspect someone is out to get you- like you happen to have the serial numbers of £50 million in used fivers on your hard drive.
Best if you can set the MAC numbers that are permitted and stop the router broadcasting the network ID. That way it would take a serious hacker to get onto your system. It's more casual abusers of a totally open system we need to protect against, or the kids next door stealing our porn.
 
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