Neighbor stealing internet service

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
If someone is piggy backing on your wireless modem you should see the traffic lights blinking like mad on the modem when you are not doing anything on it, and they are. Need to encrypt the wireless setup on it as others have said.


That depends. I have uVerse and my gateway is always going because it serves the computers, the phone and the TV in the home.

 

[Quest]

seriously Jim,

You need to find someone who knows wifi setup (and extremely savvy about it, not hacker of some kind from highschool but a guy whose also a computer serviceman/security guy of some kind. Getting help from highschool kid is great so long as they don't keep an extra pwd on their end (and share it with their friends in the neighbourhood).

Also: ditch that TPLink wireless router and get something at least a linksys WRT54G or better, the ones that has a self-guided wireless security lockdown (very easy to walk yourself through the process).

Good luck on that!

Q.

BTW: not all home based wireless router are created the same (they are pretty much what I considered toys): while I'd say that most of them are very weak/vulnerable to attacks or hacking of somekind, so most seasoned guys typically get an open-source based wireless router, flash it with DD-WRT, tomato or similar and then go from there (rather challenging for first-timer to navigate/understand, so YMMV). Also: TPLink is what we considered "2nd class" toy which is not strong/reliable/secure by any means.....

 

[OVERKILL]

You are kind, TP Link is what I consider garbage, LOL! Right up there with D-Link as far as being steaming piles.

But then I have to consider I have different expectations from my equipment than the average home user.

 

[Quest]

Well Overkill,

It's hard to talk an avg joe into getting enterprise class equipment, letting alone the complexity involved in getting things set up right and working properly.

Q.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Quest
Well Overkill,

It's hard to talk an avg joe into getting enterprise class equipment, letting alone the complexity involved in getting things set up right and working properly.

Q.


This is very true. But at least many of the consumer-grade devices (ASUS, Buffalo, Linksys...etc) can be upgraded to better 3rd party firmware. Which is nice.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: Quest
seriously Jim,
Also: ditch that TPLink wireless router and get something at least a linksys WRT54G or better, the ones that has a self-guided wireless security lockdown (very easy to walk yourself through the process).

Good luck on that!

Q.

BTW: not all home based wireless router are created the same (they are pretty much what I considered toys): while I'd say that most of them are very weak/vulnerable to attacks or hacking of somekind, so most seasoned guys typically get an open-source based wireless router, flash it with DD-WRT, tomato or similar and then go from there (rather challenging for first-timer to navigate/understand, so YMMV). Also: TPLink is what we considered "2nd class" toy which is not strong/reliable/secure by any means.....


Almost every consumer router has an internal webserver to connect to for the wireless setting, some variation of address 192.168.x.x designed for the computer novice to easily set this stuff up. There's no reason to be running unsecured wireless.

While not nearly as good as commercial hardware, buying the right brand/model and upgrading the firmware will leave you with something halfway between consumer grade and enterprise hardware.

And I love me some tomato as a replacement firmware. I've got a Buffalo WHR-HP-54G running tomato feeding my network. I've also got an old linksys before the hardware revisions that crippled the device acting as a wireless bridge setting on my entertainment center that my blu-ray player is tied into so I can watch on demand internet services on my TV.

Nicest thing about the open source firmware is the ability to turn up the transmit power which is very useful when you live in an area saturated with wireless signals. If I take my laptop to my garage, I can pick up 8 different networks besides mine. I used the site survey tools in tomato, picked an unused channel and bumped the power by about 10mW. I've also got the QoS set for streaming media to prevent network lags for video content.