home wireless LAN, can neighbours get free net access?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

grasmere

Active Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2004
Messages
675
Location
Harrogate
Car
MB C220 D 1996
I guess there is a simple explanation to this but here goes anyway ;)

I had this thought the other day: I have a d-link adsl router and have a pci card for desktop and cardbus adapter for the laptop.

IIRC When I installed the card on my laptop the program found the router and I could then access the net. Question is . . . if eg my neighbour was setting up a similar system (unbeknown to me) how would his laptop know which router he was accessing?

ie could he surf the net via my adsl service and vice-versa could I do the same through his :D
 
Have you set up any type of encryption? e.g. WEP or AES. If so then your neighbour will see that your wireless network exists but he won't be able to access it unless he knows the relevant encryption key which is highly unlikely.

If you haven't set any encryption on your network then yes... your neighbour will be able to freeload off of your internet connection.

If he doesn't set up any security then yes you could also access the internet for free via his connection.

You can also set your network to a different wireless channel to minimise confusion. I think there's 11 separate channels to choose from with 11g networks.

*EDIT* Another form of wireless LAN security is MAC filtering, where by you configure your router to only accept connections from known MAC addresses.

S.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Steve, nothing is set up for encryption as far as I can tell. Under 'encryption' (in the mini window from the taskbar icon) 'Auth Mode' which I assume is 'authentication mode' is set to 'auto' whatever that means?

What I did was set it all up straight out of the box and left it at that. I'll dig out the installation instructions and see what it says about encryption, thank you.
 
I went through this on Firday. Wireless all new to me.

Fairly easy to set up encryption and lock down your router to the MAC address of your laptop only.

I had to ask for help on the encryption, but 64 or 128 but WEP encryption is what you want to configure. Set it on the router then configure Windows with the code generated.
 
A friend of mine installed a wireless network for his house and DID share internet access with his neighbour.
 
PJH said:
A friend of mine installed a wireless network for his house and DID share internet access with his neighbour.

Not an issue if they are prepared to pay half of your bill !! Quite a good idea actually !

S.
 
Well I tried but cannot find info on encryption - can anyone point me in the direction of info on setting it up please
 
you have mail :D
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom