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| Thread ID: 99474 | 2009-05-03 09:52:00 | Preventing wireless bandwidth theft? | braindead (1685) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 770669 | 2009-05-03 09:52:00 | My 90-year old mother uses her PC for email and Word, via one of Xtra's wireless/fixed line combo routers. The wireless part is used by an upstairs boarder with a wireless-capable laptop, who also uses it sparingly - no movies etc. After some PC maintenance I noticed her internet speed was about dial-up. When I checked via Xtra's helpdesk, they said her 3GB/month was all used up, hence the slow-down. I suspect someone has been leeching bandwidth and I'm looking to protect the network against that. Aside from manually configuring/encryption, is there any software (preferably free) that would help me with this problem? The guy with the lappy is pretty clueless so anything may have happened on his PC. I haven't yet looked at his machine. Thanks! |
braindead (1685) | ||
| 770670 | 2009-05-03 09:53:00 | encryption and MAC address filtering is the way to go. use WPA2 if possible- its the strongest level of security |
GameJunkie (72) | ||
| 770671 | 2009-05-03 10:04:00 | Just use MAC address filtering-very simple to set up. My guess is that the person leeching your internet is probably just an amateur and knows little about hacking, so WEP/WPA/WPA2 encryption should be fine. If you can't do any of the above, then change the SSID to something uncommon, such as jinykol and then dsiable broadcasting of SSID. The n00b who is taking all your internet will be baffled:p Edit: Just saw that your post said "Aside from manually configuring/encryption" Try this then: www.snapfiles.com Should work fine, unless the leecher is an experienced hacker, if so I wouldn't bother trying to secure your network... Blam |
Blam (54) | ||
| 770672 | 2009-05-03 10:10:00 | You really should enable WPA/WPA2 on the router - there are other reasons for doing this, such as protecting the security of data being transmitted wirelessly. | somebody (208) | ||
| 770673 | 2009-05-03 10:10:00 | It's the dude up stairs. But yeah, MAC address filtering would go a long way. | sal (67) | ||
| 770674 | 2009-05-03 10:11:00 | The wireless part is used by an upstairs boarder with a wireless-capable laptop, who also uses it sparingly - no movies etc. The guy with the lappy is pretty clueless so anything may have happened on his PC. I haven't yet looked at his machine. This could well be your problem |
Joe Blogs (35) | ||
| 770675 | 2009-05-03 10:19:00 | Unless the 'experianced hacker' has a Blade server or an array of playstion 3s or has many gtx280s with cuda I think wpa2 should stump him for a while :) | Fifthdawn (9467) | ||
| 770676 | 2009-05-03 10:26:00 | mac filtering is not much use..... any hacker can get passed mac filter (I have done it many times) Mac filtering is only good to stop people connecting by mistake. hidden SSID is much the same. if a hacker uses any wifi scanner it can / will find all access points regardless of hidden SSID. wep is broken, wep is dead, wep is a 25 second crack. if you want to be secure use WPA or WPA2 and a good password. |
robsonde (120) | ||
| 770677 | 2009-05-03 10:33:00 | if you want to be secure use WPA or WPA2 and a good password Thats very true , but there is one big downside to using the WPA or WPA2.- I have found lots of devices have connection problems when using it, even some new laptops, the security is to good and wont allow connections. | wainuitech (129) | ||
| 770678 | 2009-05-03 10:52:00 | I used to use MAC address filtering plus originally WEP and now WPA2 - until I saw how easy it is to crack MAC address filtering. So now I make it simple - use WPA2 only which is sufficient to stop all but the serious snooper. |
johnd (85) | ||
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