Detecting leachers on your broadband

darbooka

When I moved to my street I was first to have broadband. Since then a few neighbours have gotten it and I can see their wifi connections.
Without doing anything differently my usage stats has skyrocketed - is there any way to see if/when someone is connecting to my wireless broadband account and using up my capacity allocation?

gaming_guy

if your router supports WPA-PSK use that as WEP security can be cracked in under a second and also set up MAC address filtering, so only your equipment can connect to your network

espresso

What router are you using?

gavinp

Don't bother with WEP encryption, hidden SSID network names or MAC address filters as they are all easily defeated, you want to enable WPA-PSK encryption on your router and all PCs with a strong passphrase:

http://www.kurtm.net/wpa-pskgen/

Thanks

Gavin

darbooka

It's an eTec router.
I'm not so concerned about senstive info, as I am about them using up my metered bandwith.
I have no idea how to set the security encryption.

espresso

Not familiar with an eTec router, do you have a model number? You need to set up the best encryption that your router supports to prevent others using your bandwidth. Your user guide should show you how to do this.

tomstickland

Most routers have admin screens that will show the connection history.

Personally I just use wired Broadband since I think wireless is a waste of effort.

GuessWho_2

Al_Mac wrote:

PS Just converted from WEP to WAP

Is that the crackable version of wpa


But seriously, like others have said, use wpa with a strong key
another source is here
https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

and DO bcast SSID, hiding it achieves nothing!

espresso

Al_Mac wrote:

Why one and not the other?

What is the point of hiding your SSID if you have secure encryption? It doesn't not make it any more secure and others may set up their network on the same channel if they can't see it, causing more grief.

jago25_98

I hope one day to figure out how to leave my connection open, but proritise the service to my PCs, so other people can use my connection if they like. Of course, hopefully they won't break into a bank

GuessWho_2

jago25_98 wrote:

I hope one day to figure out how to leave my connection open, but proritise the service to my PCs, so other people can use my connection if they like. Of course, hopefully they won't break into a bank

gotta push shedloads of spam next week, would you mind giving me your ip to add to the public proxy list?

Just kidding