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

lesley1960

for a while my lap top would keep picking up someone elses network , but a box used to flash up telling me , really annoying because oddly the strength was never as strong as ours?

sinizterguy

If youre not on your own connections, there is a very very high probability that youre on someone else's connection.

Change the default router name to something unique, but not stupid like house number and street name. Use some security - preferably WPA2, but even WEP will deter casual scrounging and even beginner hacking.

Nicki

b33r wrote: »

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...

Oops! Certainly didn't do it knowingly in our case. It must be the kind of thing it is very easy to do by accident then, as I was completely unaware it had happened until I called a tech out to complain that my broadband connection was running very very slowly, and he spotted it.

Wouldn't be a problem of course if people would just secure their network.

espresso

Nicki wrote: »

Wouldn't be a problem of course if people would just secure their network.

Wouldn't be a problem if yours was set up correctly to automatically connect to your own network!