Could someone be hacking into our internet?

debitcardmayhem

Hi, can't help too much with monitoring your usage per se nor what is using your allowance, but How much do you pay for MAAF (madas...) Broadband? And are you on 5Gb / Month ? I was and asked for a MAC and changed to Plusnet for a lot less per month + 10gb monthly (plus unlimited between 2400 and 0800). Plus they kept my domain name too because MAAF=Plusnet (was Totalise before that). It may save you a few quid + I have to say their support has been exceptional too, they "switched" me without any loss of service etc. I believe +net are offering 10.79/month then 12.99/month.

debitcardmayhem

Addendum to my last post the CSC guy I dealt with at Plusnet was Michael Wheeler and he was very helpful.

Edited: Your last post was correct too it was 173M not 17.3M

esuhl

mamazaac wrote: »

Have just been sitting looking at netmonitor with just this webpage open and it seems to be downloading about 2 kb every 10 seconds. Would this be considered a tiny amount?

Yes - I have an idle VNC session (like Remote Desktop) open and I'm using about 1.7kb every 10 seconds.

mamazaac wrote: »

I am not actively using anything else on the pc and have not been on youtube today. Does this suggest is most like " software that connects to servers to determine whether the software you have is up-to-date..."?

I would have thought so, but it may also be a few packets being sent between devices on your network as fenlander_uk suggests.

mamazaac wrote: »

There is an option on net monitor that says "trace route". When I click this it prepares a report and one of the column titles is website. Under this are several gobblygook web addresses, mainly just numbers. Is this trace route something which is telling me the problem, just that I can't understand it?

Traceroute is used to (literally) trace the route of a data packet sent to a server over a network. It's sometimes useful for checking whether there's a problem with the routing of Internet traffic, but wouldn't tell you which other applications might also be sending/receiving network data.

mamazaac wrote: »

Thank you, but when I use the conversion tool you gave me (similar to one I used from google earlier), it tells me that 178000 kb is 173.82813 mb, not 17.382 mb as you say. This is why I am confused.

You're correct - 178,000kb is about 173.82813Mb, because there are 1024 kilobits in a megabit. The units you might also see are:

b - bit (a single Binary digIT - 0 or 1)
B - byte (= 8 bits)
k - kilo (x1024 - i.e. there are 1024b to 1kb)
M - mega (x1024x1024 - i.e. there are 1024kb in 1Mb)
G - giga (x1024x1024x1024)
T - tera (x1024x1024x1024x1024)

mamazaac wrote: »

But, if it is 173.82 mb {in netmonitor}, it far exceeds what my ISP is telling me has been used even for the whole of the day up to that point.

That definitely sounds like netmonitor is measuring local traffic sent between devices on your network (again, as fenlander_uk suggested).

Did you have a look at NetLimiter? As I said, I haven't tried it myself, but the screenshots seem to show just the kind of info you're looking for. Actually, I've just had another look and it seems like you can set up "rules" to block or allow traffic, just like a firewall...

mamazaac

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Hi, can't help too much with monitoring your usage per se nor what is using your allowance, but How much do you pay for MAAF (madas...) Broadband? And are you on 5Gb / Month ? I was and asked for a MAC and changed to Plusnet for a lot less per month + 10gb monthly (plus unlimited between 2400 and 0800). Plus they kept my domain name too because MAAF=Plusnet (was Totalise before that). It may save you a few quid + I have to say their support has been exceptional too, they "switched" me without any loss of service etc. I believe +net are offering 10.79/month then 12.99/month.

Thanks for the advice but, unfortunately, I live in an area where I can't get the Plusnet, etc, cheap internet deals. I have negotiated £7.50 per month with MAAF for 5gb. We rarely go over this but, when we do, it costs us £2 per extra gb.

mamazaac

esuhl wrote: »

Did you have a look at NetLimiter? As I said, I haven't tried it myself, but the screenshots seem to show just the kind of info you're looking for. Actually, I've just had another look and it seems like you can set up "rules" to block or allow traffic, just like a firewall...

Thanks for all the info. Yes I had a look at netlimiter but it seems you have to pay for that. Am going to try Networx as fenlander_uk suggested I think.

mamazaac

fenlander_uk wrote: »

I imagine netmonitor is registering your internal network traffic as well as your internet connection. There should be an option somewhere to exclude internal traffic from the stats. If not, switch to a monitor that does, such as Networx.

Have now downloaded this. To exclude internal traffic from the stats do I tick the box "ignore local traffic within the LAN"? If not, please can you tell me how I can do this?

And do I have to install it on each username as I think it may only be monitoring my username usage?

fenlander_uk

Yes, just tick the box to ignore local traffic.

Networx should monitor all users on a machine, provided it is set to start with Windows. You can also monitor multiple PCs. To do this, just install on each PC that accesses the internet and tick the option to synchronise (you may have to OK this with your firewall). Don't forget to set the 'ignore local traffic' option on each machine, as well. Each machine will then show the total bandwidth used by all users on all machines.

Unfortunately, Networx is PC-only, so if you have games consoles or smartphones using your connection they will not be included in any stats. In this case, the only way to get a true global figure for internet usage is if your router monitors dataflow.

mamazaac

fenlander_uk wrote: »

Yes, just tick the box to ignore local traffic.

Networx should monitor all users on a machine, provided it is set to start with Windows. You can also monitor multiple PCs. To do this, just install on each PC that accesses the internet and tick the option to synchronise (you may have to OK this with your firewall). Don't forget to set the 'ignore local traffic' option on each machine, as well. Each machine will then show the total bandwidth used by all users on all machines.

Unfortunately, Networx is PC-only, so if you have games consoles or smartphones using your connection they will not be included in any stats. In this case, the only way to get a true global figure for internet usage is if your router monitors dataflow.

Thanks, only using pcs apart from very occasional iplayer through the wii, so should be ok for my needs. Could I just ask what the netstat facility is - have looked at the description in "help" but don't understand what it means about listening to connections and ports. Seems to be an awful lot of things it is listening to or established on and don't know if it should be.

closed

download

http://live.sysinternals.com/Tcpview.exe

it's netstat with a gui

netstat shows every connection between your pc and the outside world, and which port

avast 6 freee has a graph of web traffic which may be of use.

this works with a few routers

http://vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm#routerstats

and shows everything going through the router

mamazaac

closed wrote: »

download

http://live.sysinternals.com/Tcpview.exe

it's netstat with a gui

netstat shows every connection between your pc and the outside world, and which port

avast 6 freee has a graph of web traffic which may be of use.

this works with a few routers

http://vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm#routerstats

and shows everything going through the router

Thank you, I thought that it was showing that. There are connections that are worrying me a bit as they don't mean anything to me - apple mobile device (is this to do with downloading music to a phone?), AVP, Bonjour Service, IKEEXT, lxcd device, policy agent, RpcSs, Schedule, SSDPSRV. Are these connections normal?