Touble connecting to my neighbors Wireless connection

If your computer or your wireless network adapter did not come with its own wireless network software, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type ncpa.cpl, and then click OK.
2. Click Network Connections.
3. In Network Connections, click to select your wireless connection, and then click Change settings of this connection.
4. On the Wireless Networks tab, click to select the Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings check box.

To start the Wireless Zero Configuration service, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type %SystemRoot%\system32\services.msc /s, and then click OK.
2. Double-click Wireless Zero Configuration.
3. In the Startup type list, click Automatic, and then click Apply.
4. In the Service status area, click Start, and then click OK.

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Good luck. This is why my WAP is encrypted. neaky:

Mike

I don't think you really need any help. What you are doing is dishonest and definately in a grey area legally. You'll probabally figure out how to get the connection setup before you read this post anyway, still I hope your concience shames you into talking to your neighbor and helping him secure his wireless.

Sounds to me like the wireless router in the other room isn't hooked up to an internet connection... maybe you should volunteer to help your neighbors fix their connection

Kornphlake said:

I don't think you really need any help. What you are doing is dishonest and definately in a grey area legally. You'll probabally figure out how to get the connection setup before you read this post anyway, still I hope your concience shames you into talking to your neighbor and helping him secure his wireless.

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ink:

Kornphlake said:

I don't think you really need any help. What you are doing is dishonest and definately in a grey area legally. You'll probabally figure out how to get the connection setup before you read this post anyway, still I hope your concience shames you into talking to your neighbor and helping him secure his wireless.

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I don't agree. Many networks are public. Many cities are trying to implement free broadband across large areas. Its not the users responsibility to determine which networks are meant to be public and which aren't. If you don't want someone using your signal, then it is your responsibility to secure it.

I just got a new wifi detector that goes on my keychain

mack said:

So i just arrived at the condo in sun valley today, and to my nice surprise i am picking up a unencrypted out of the box 'linksys' wireless singal. It is running at 1mbps and i have full intention of using it. :devil:

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Good grief...and my friends wonder why I won't step into the 21st Century and go wireless.

Hopefully, it's a really crafty neighbor who set the bait, is about to install a back door in your shi+, turn the tables and rob you blind! :mumble:

Oh, and if you want to get philosophical about this, consider that the neighbor is sending a persistent signal into someone elses property. If theres an available signall in my house, I'm going to use it. It's my freakin house after all.

I do that, it saves money and if they dont know your doing it it really doesnt matter. Anyway, my computer does the same thing yours is doing from time to time. I usually call linksys tech support it takes a while but they can usually get it working. If you dont have their number pm me and ill get it to you.

llkoolkeg said:

Good grief...and my friends wonder why I won't step into the 21st Century and go wireless.

Hopefully, it's a really crafty neighbor who set the bait, is about to install a back door in your shi+, turn the tables and rob you blind! :mumble:

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There's a difference between going wireless and going wireless stupidly.

The Linksys router has this nice little interface that tells you what MAC addresses are trying to access it, and lets you block or allow those addresses. My network is plenty secure - only my laptop can access it. Everything else gets denied.

And yeah, before you smartasses jump in, I know you can spoof MAC addresses but my neighbors are idiots and I live in a neighborhood of old retired people. If someone wants to use my DSL that bad, let 'em.

He probably pulled the wan plug before he left, some wifi base stations are just that....base stations to get into you local network.

That or he has blocked or allowed only certain mac address.

Ridemonkey said:

I don't agree. Many networks are public. Many cities are trying to implement free broadband across large areas. Its not the users responsibility to determine which networks are meant to be public and which aren't. If you don't want someone using your signal, then it is your responsibility to secure it.

I just got a new wifi detector that goes on my keychain




Oh, and if you want to get philosophical about this, consider that the neighbor is sending a persistent signal into someone elses property. If theres an available signall in my house, I'm going to use it. It's my freakin house after all.

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In my book there is a clear cut differance between a network that is intentionally left open and advertised as such and one that is mistakenly left open. Consider who is paying for the bandwidth, is it something that is provided by your tax dollars or is it somethign that your neighbor is paying for. I believe that most residential broadband contracts, if not all, prohibit sharing connections across multiple residances, this includes apartments, condos, or single family units, wired or wireless. Should the ISP for whatever reason need to troubleshoot the connection and the tech figures out the connection is being shared with multiple residances they have the right to terminate the contract. For goodness sake, SBC Yahoo DSL is as cheap as dial up at this point, there's no reason not to have your own broadband connection.

slight derail... on ethics (and my general lack of them). If my neighbor has a wireless connection and he/she leaves it open, then I use it. My question is this: If I use the wireless connection to download music, is there any way sysadmins or "the man" can differentiate between who has downloaded the e-contraband? That is, am I risking getting my neighbor in trouble with the law due to DMCA laws by downloading with his/her connection?

Kornphlake said:

For goodness sake, SBC Yahoo DSL is as cheap as dial up at this point, there's no reason not to have your own broadband connection.

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I fthey are concerned enough about their network to care, they would have secured it.

Also - there is a good reason not to have one at your condo..when you only visit a few weeks a year.

mack said:

So i just arrived at the condo in sun valley today, and to my nice surprise i am see a nice Santa Cruz Blur next door. It is "secured" with a really cheezy lock and i have full intention of riding it. :devil:

Any ways, i tried smashing the lock with a hammer and the handle broke. I tried again with wire cutters but they're dull. I have taken one wheel. But for some reason i cannot get the lock off. I have gone to the heardwhere stoire but they won't sell me bolt cutters. It is sitting there waiting for me to ride it. Everything should work, i dont understand why i can't get the lock off. Maybe try a torch, but id have to steal that someplace and it's too much like work.
.

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dork.

mack said:

I still cant get connected. I got Windows to set up the connection, and still nothing. I am totally confused. This should work, it worked last year on my Dad's laptop. But that computer had built in wireless capability. I might call windows up.

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He probably has it set up the way I do - restricted MAC addresses. That's what would happen with my network - someone can try and try to connect to it, they can see the net, but it won't let them communicate through it.

mack said:

<snip> But that computer had built in wireless capability. I might call windows up.

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You know there is no "Windows" person to call up, right???

binary visions said:

He probably has it set up the way I do - restricted MAC addresses. That's what would happen with my network - someone can try and try to connect to it, they can see the net, but it won't let them communicate through it.

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This sounds like what's happening.

As for the ethics of the situation... ethics are a personal thing that Mack must decide on himself. Equating what he's doing to stealing a locked bike is a bit of a stretch IMO. Should Mack find a way into the network and actually use the connection it is highly unlikely that his usage would cause any noticable degradation in performance for his neighbor. Is it "stealing"? Yes, absolutely. But then how many of us have "sampled" a grape or piece of candy at the market? Or called in sick to go ride on a beautiful day. Eating the grape is still stealing and calling in sick is still lying. I am not going to bash Mack's ethics untill my own life is perfect. I do agree with RM though... It is the responsibility of the owner to secure his connection and if you are broadcasting into my house then I am going to use your signal. I wouldn't let you run a wire into my house, why should your wireless connection be any different?

What I would do (and recommend Mack do) is to talk with his neighbor and inform him that his wireless network is open and vulnerable and then ask if said neighbor wouldn't mind sharing the connection for a bit. If I understand correctly Mack is only at Sun Valley a few weeks or months a year. Unless the neighbor is a total dick he probably won't mind letting the goofy kid next door tap in for a bit. Maybe offer to pay 5 - 10 bucks a month to help out.

As for file sharing, well I tend to only share and trade privately. (Yeah, I'm a pirate. So what? Arrrgggh!) It's too risky to me to go onto LimeWire or other peer to peer file sharing programs.
You are only going to get prosecuted if you share a ton of files, and they can prove that you downloaded the file AND they find it on your PC. If you are running a router or other network device that provides you a private network then the RIAA can only track you down to the point of the IP issued by the ISP. Meaning that your neighbor would get in trouble. Don't do it. If you need a tune that bad let me know. I'll Paypal you the 99 cents to get it off of I Tunes. (If I am wrong, someone please correct me!)

If my neighbor left a keg in my yard I'd be sampling that too. Same damn thing.

There was a thread on another forum I found that went on for more than 10 pages on the topic of wifi connection leeching. After reading 2 pages of people saying go ahead and do it, it's your neighbor's fault for being an ignorant old lady and not securing her network, and only a few arguing the contrary, I give up. I'd never do it myself, but it looks like the majority has spoken. Mack, you might need to set your default gateway to the modem's ip address, you'll have a difficult time guessing that one though. Can you ping out, maybe try a tracert and see how far you are getting.

NERDS!

I recently got a work laptop with wireless capability, but im not smart enough to figure how to use it... plus my closest neighbor is about a football field or more away from my house (i own 5 acres and am sort of in the middle of it), and i dont think the redneck huntin boatin guy that lives next to me would be using the enternit via wireless......

NERDS-Alert!

loco said:

You know there is no "Windows" person to call up, right???

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Sure there is!! Johnny Windows! Great guy! Knows lots about computers and such......

Ridemonkey said:

Oh, and if you want to get philosophical about this, consider that the neighbor is sending a persistent signal into someone elses property. If theres an available signall in my house, I'm going to use it. It's my freakin house after all.

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The next lawsuit waiting to happen.

you know you could always try to access the router if they are cluless then they probably never set the password and the default should be admin I cant remember the standard IP for lynksis but you should be able to find it esily

firetoole said:

you know you could always try to access the router if they are cluless then they probably never set the password and the default should be admin I cant remember the standard IP for lynksis but you should be able to find it esily

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No, do not try to edit the guy's router settings. Using his broadband is bad enough, start f**king with his computer and you've stepped over the boundaries.

As Ciaran said, mack, if you find a way to use the connection, and insist on using it, do NOT participate in file swapping or other illegal or questionable activities. If it gets traced back, it will go directly to him/her, not to you.

Like I said, though, if you can see the signal, and it just refuses to allow you to connect, then it's likely set up to filter MAC addresses. Which means that you're S.O.L.

I am not saying to F with the guys setting but if you access his router you can see his setting and you will know for shure why you can't get on to it
I repeat Do Not Mess With His Setting!

Bandwidth theivery, I love it. Just think of all those 1's and 0's running through your head.


Wireless




Dood, here's a test, do ipconfig /all at a dos prompt. Do you see anything for DNS?
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.2.2.140
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.2.2.7
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.2.2.57
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.2.2.57
Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.2.2.3

NO DNS, NO SURFING

End of discussion. As for the security paranoia, what are you worried about? someone gonna see your porn on your hdd? I don't understand it. I run completely unprotected. I got viruses, spam, spyware. The more the merrier. As long as I can get on the net. I got a ghost drive I switch from every month or two which is clean. I mirror it to the main drive, wipe it out, clean it and restore my email.

I have to laugh. My father in law has norton internet security, antivirus, poop up stopper, this that. He's got like 3 antivirus things running all at once. The little right hand lower corner that shows what's running? Well that goes across 3/4 of the taskbar.

He's always asking me why his pc runs like dog sh*t.

Kevin

Knuckleslammer said:

I have to laugh. My father in law has norton internet security, antivirus, poop up stopper, this that. He's got like 3 antivirus things running all at once. The little right hand lower corner that shows what's running? Well that goes across 3/4 of the taskbar.

He's always asking me why his pc runs like dog sh*t.

Kevin

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Wait. . . my wife doesn't have a sister, and her brother isn't married. How can we have the same father-in-law?

I once booted up his $3k Dell to see so many damned meters and graphs (antivirus, memory tracking, system utilization, etc) I wanted to ask where the flux capacitor was. When the thing got so slow they couldn't stand it, they just bought a new one, shoved the old one over, and started fresh.

My bro-in-law pops PC hoods for $$ and made the mistake of looking over my dad's PC. . . despite a nice crisp cable broadband connection his e-mail still took forever to load. . . dammit Dad why do you STILL HAVE AOL?????? Bro-in-law politely informs him he should really dump the AOL and use the broadband ISP mailer. . . a year later and he's still crawling along w/the AOL crap.

Has the geek dictionary already put a label on these guys? If not, I'll have to come up w/one.

that sounds just like my dad except he won't let me fix it because he thinks I will break it (basing this on the fact that he has seen me open up my computer an he thinks that is a crime)

Some folk think that AOL is the only way to connect to the net.