ISP - across the road

charlie · May 15, 2006

Just worked out i can use the wireless conection across the road - i guess hes/shes using a MAC as the network is called "apple network". I dont have much experience of wireless -
can they see me?
is it obvious when i log on?
can they read everything i type?

thanks

Admin · May 15, 2006

You are on the same network so potentially they could capture your network traffic, although its no something anyone could easily do without the right knowledge / software.

Most routers I use allow you to see connected devices by IP and MAC address.

In the States someone got prosecuted for doing that, but I am not sure if it is illegal here.

tifosi · May 15, 2006

just moved house. While I was waiting for broadband to be reinstalled I had the choice of 6 unsecured wireless networks!

... security was the first thing I reactivated when I got mine!

charlie · May 15, 2006

i cant see it been a problem unless you have shared drives - though i suppose i could be very wrong

retired_member16 · May 15, 2006

charlie said:
Just worked out i can use the wireless conection across the road - i guess hes/shes using a MAC as the network is called "apple network". I dont have much experience of wireless -
can they see me?
is it obvious when i log on?
can they read everything i type?

thanks

_I_ could see you, the man on the street is unlikely to

a) know how
b) want to know how

- I use my neighbours connection if mine ever goes down. The whole street lost power for a few hours not long ago, so I jumped in the car with the Laptop and drove up to an business park. Most of the companies there have open wireless connections in their receptions for visitors, so I use those to download my mail and shift files around.

Illegal in the UK.

charlie · May 15, 2006

firestars said:
Illegal in the UK.

really? - cant see how they would ever police that - so do places that offer public service need a licence?

FC Domains · May 15, 2006

My laptop will find any open WiFi and use it without asking. I assume that's the way it's meant to work.

I think that if you hack into the router (because they won't have changed the default password) it's a different matter.

retired_member6 · May 15, 2006

I can't imagine it being illegal, the most advanced country on the planet regarding this? South Korea!! We westerners don't know what we're missing until it's on the shelf and they've had it a year.

aquanuke · May 15, 2006

Read a story about some guy driving around downloading porn. He got arrested for it.. guess it depends what your using your neighbours connection for

aquanuke · May 15, 2006

BTW dont whack off and drive - you might spill your load

charlie · May 15, 2006

its a good connection - i might stop paying my own - 335kB/sec
just done 35MB in 1min30secs!

retired_member16 · May 15, 2006

charlie said:
really? - cant see how they would ever police that - so do places that offer public service need a licence?

Spent time in trying to find a link on theregister.co.uk in which I read that it was illegal.

Buggered if I can find it now. - FC might be right, hacking is bad but taking what isnt yours is frowned on too I would think?

charlie · May 15, 2006

oh i agree with all the princibles - personally if i had an 8mb line running , in fact anything running during the day when i wasn;t in the peeps are welcome to use it - when it affects my downloads then i have the right to flick it to private
cant see the harm really
free is free

tifosi · May 15, 2006

charlie said:
oh i agree with all the princibles - personally if i had an 8mb line running , in fact anything running during the day when i wasn;t in the peeps are welcome to use it - when it affects my downloads then i have the right to flick it to private
cant see the harm really
free is free

Generous, sure.

But why invest in all the fancy firewalls, routers with firewalls, virus checkers, etc, and then bypass all that by letting some backstreet hacker have free reign to your LAN?

Most people also don't have their HD partitioned and the system folders locked down. The no of people I know who have all this stuff and then load on peer-peer programs using unsecured folders is shocking.

S

El Dude · May 26, 2006

I would totally leech their connection! Of course they can see you if they look the DHCP client list in their routers CP, but chances are they don't know what that is and defiantly wouldn't be sniffing your traffic because their WLAN is unsecured. Any tech savvy dude would know how important it is to WEP up their WLAN.

If you have a Laptop then go download Net Stumbler and have a drive about town and see whos WLANs aren't secured. Just remember not to do anything naughty on someone elses network and you your be fine.

EDIT: Oh, and remember to change your host name if it's something that can get you recognised