How do I know if I'm using someone else's wireless internet ?

Lizzy

I have a belkin wireless router and belkin adapters for the 3 computers in my house. I have recently bought this new computer and have had no trouble using the internet at all. Before even if I was using the internet in the next room to the wireless adapter it would sometimes go off. It says in my bottom right hand corner that the belkin is not connected but the connection is working great.

Is it possible I am connected to someone elses wireless and how would I know. Also how do I know that my connection can't be hacked into ??? sorry I have no idea about these things. I don't want to wake up and find my bank account more empty than usual :eek:


Thanks Lizzy

Stubert

I assume you would have to click 'Connect' in your wireless console to connect to another network. If you search for local connections many of them will probably be secured anyway.

You can protect your system from being used by logging into your router and setting a WEP or WPA Protection. The IP for your router is usually something alongs the lines of 192.182.2.1 or something similar; you might need to refer to your manual to find out though. When you connect wirelessly it will ask for the code which you'll need to enter in order to get onto your internet wirelessly.

akaddcmp

hi lizzy,

what are you using to connect the 'new' pc to the internet, is it the microsoft wireless software or some other third party software that came with your usb stick?

either way you will be able to see what network you are connected to, if you are connnected to the 'belkin' then it will give the ssid (wireless network name whcih should be belkin) if you are connected to another name for example 'netgear unsecured wireless network' or 'number 52' or 'im an idiot use my internet for free' then it basically means your using someone elses hard earned money....try disconnecting and reconecting to your belkin.

give heed to th post above regarding security, another way to be abit more secure is by doing mac address filtering however you will need to know each of your pc/laptops mac addresses and then you will need to enter them manually on the router page which will be something like http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.1.254 or http://192.168.254.1 it may already show the mac addresses on connected devices page. if it gets abit complicated then ask a friend or someone with know how to sort it out for you as it will save alot of time however be there when it is being done and learn so you can do it next time and hopefully also help someone else.

by the way RTFM!

regards

akaddcmp

Nicki

We accidentally connected to our neighbour's network for a few weeks without noticing, after they installed an unsecured network (ours was secured) whose router was clearly closer to the laptop we use regularly than our router was! We didn't do anything different to skip onto the other network, and only noticed when the connection dropped one night and we clicked re-connect and saw that we were defaulting to the wrong network. A quick word with them to let them know their network was unsecured and we had accidentally piggybacked on it was enough to prompt them to sort it out!

b33r

I may be wrong but I'm sure you have to click connect in the windows zero config at least once to connect to an unsecured network, granted once you have done it once if it is higher in your wireless network priority list it will keep connecting but you must have used it sort of deliberatly at least once...

b33r

I've just done a little test and turned off my wireless and I certainly didn't automatically connect to next doors unsecured.

To ensure you will only ever connect to your own wireless network double click the wireless icon, either in the taskbar or from network connections in control panel. Click "View wireless networks", Click "Change advanced settings" on the left hand side. Goto the 2nd tab- "wireless networks", and remove any networks from that list that you don't want to connect to (or move yours to the top of the list) and unless you click on them in the future you shouldnt automatically connect.

This is assuming you use the windows wireless zero config. I've only ever used one piece of 3rd party software for a wireless network on windows and that was an Asus one, and that was so bad I disabled it and used the windows one.

espresso

Lizzy

You should have changed the network name (SSID) to something different i.e. not Belkin and configure so that your computers will only connect to your network.

Lizzy

Sorry its far too complicated I will have to ask someone to come in and do it. Think I will start by switching off my router and see what happens.

Thanks for the help though. I really need to sort it out.

espresso

You really need to ensure that your wireless network is encrypted using WPA-PSK.

Little_John

Lizzy, changing the name of your wireless router is one of the easiest things to do.
The install guide will show you how to do it if you just read that. it should take you about 2 minutes if you take your time.

ormus

yes. change the name of your network (really easy), and make sure you have your wireless network security enabled.
sometimes i can get 4 networks near my home! one of them is open!