We've all done it, especially when we've just moved into a new apartment. You see that unsecure wireless internet and you sneak on to check your email and keep connected until the installation man makes his rounds. But for some of us, those internet leeches can seriously weigh down our surfing speed and we like to keep our home networks private. Here's a quick list of what you can do to keep those moochers off your net. (And thank you to all who let us steal your internet from time to time.)
• Encrypt your connection: It's the most effective.
• Don't broadcast your network name: If they can't see you, they can't find you.
• Run firewall software: If you're on a PC and not behind a router, you should be doing this anyway.
• Move to the Country: Unless cows have to learned how to use the internet, chances are you are far enough away from your neighbor to not have to worry about this.
Have we forgotten something or perhaps there’s something we haven’t discovered yet? Let us know below.
Don't bother with tip #2. When you connect to any AP, encrypted or not, your router will send your computer the SSID in cleartext (ie. not encrypted). There are also spoofs available to trick a computer to try and reconnect to the AP, sending the SSID in the process. Just use the highest level of security you have available on your router.
That, and be careful if you intend on using WiFi in Michigan.
view Ondrej's profile
Setting up encryption can be a pain for many people, perhaps more work than they are willing to put forth to get their internet connection working. If they just want to keep the lazy/uninformed internet "borrowers" off their connection, SSID hiding is the easiest way to do it. Its not perfect, but its easier than setting up keys/passwords on all your different machines.
view aghman's profile
I keep my wifi connection open to anyone who wants to piggyback. I have a private acct. as well.
view ebrown's profile
how effective is using a MAC address filter?
view stereophonik's profile
aghman: I sympathize, but it's like only locking the screen door to your house to protect from hungry brown bears. You're still broadcasting everything you download and upload to anyone listening. Without knowing anything about your AP, someone with a sniffer can still get the entire contents of the emails you send wirelessly, for example.
sterophonik: Not very. MACs can be sniffed and cloned quite easily. WPA2 (or WPA) is still the best way to secure a consumer AP at the moment.
view Ondrej's profile
I use the mac address filter system in my townhouse where I share the wifi with my landlord and it works great.
view eddieb's profile
MAC ID filtering works fine for us. I've done a site survey with our current antenna and if someone were trying to spoof info and get on from outside the structure, they'd have to be sitting on my porch to do it.
Also, know your neighbors. Live around as many unsavvy people as possible, watch out for teenagers with too much time on their hands and you'll reduce your risk. :-p
We have a customer way out in the country that had us run a drop (aprox. 175ft) for her to her screened in gazebo so we could connect an AP. The porch screening material (some sort of metal, not the nylon/plasticy type) very effectively shielded the Wifi base station signal coming from in her house that worked all around the property except for inside that one area. Not that anyone would want to line their walls with it....but maybe!
view bekabug's profile
Does it bug anyone else that that key is clearly not meant for that lock?
view blake's profile
Although I'm concerned about unauthorized use of my network, I'm more concerned about the privacy of my network traffic. To support that, I route all of my wireless network traffic through a VPN. I use a wireless router (Linksys WRT54GL) that runs third-party firmware (DD-WRT) that includes a VPN server (OpenVPN). In combination with the OpenVPN client software on my desktop, all of my network traffic is encrypted via SSL as it travels from my desktop to the router. This is in addition to the normal WPA encryption. The router then decrypts the traffic and sends it on down the wires. In order for my wireless network traffic to be analyzed, they would have to break both WPA (possible) and SSL (not possible to date). Yes, I am paranoid. :)
It was a bit of a pain to setup, but other than having to login to the VPN it's completely transparent.
view Christian - SLC's profile