Poll: Woman Calls Tech Guy About Stolen Wi-Fi Network

[300lb. Samoan]

HA! This reminds me of that old gem, "hello, Compaq? I broke my retractable cup-holder, how much is it to replace it? - Sir, that's not a cup-holder, that's a $200 CD-ROM drive." (We're talking circa 1993 when these dirks still listened to cassettes and were still making their way to their first AOL account.)

But this guy does make a number of excellent points, and it does remind me that my access point has been unsecured for a while now. I think I just figured out how I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon...

 

[Chebs]

Ours used to be unprotected, and slow as hell.

Funny thing was when we started protecting it, our neighbor's brought up how "the internet died".

Funny stuff.

Haha, same thing happened to me. It dawned on me one day that people might be leeching off my connection and that's why it was slow, so I locked it down. About 15 minutes later the neighbor came over and asked if I was having internet problems because he just got kicked off and couldn't get back online. Good times.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't steal wi-fi, and I'm sure not many of us here do. I on the other hand am sure to have a long, convoluted, incoherent password that is just a random throw together of numbers at letters. It makes it near impossible to get it right.

aah, but then the inevitab..ineve...the time comes dammit when you will disconnect, or otherwise lose said password, and what then! HMM?

Push the "reset" button. Be kind of a ***** if you could lock yourself out of your own network like that.

Or write it down somewhere, and keep that in a secure spot like a locked filing cabinet.

 

[Jiggabyte]

Ours used to be unprotected, and slow as hell.

Funny thing was when we started protecting it, our neighbor's brought up how "the internet died".

Funny stuff.

Haha, same thing happened to me. It dawned on me one day that people might be leeching off my connection and that's why it was slow, so I locked it down. About 15 minutes later the neighbor came over and asked if I was having internet problems because he just got kicked off and couldn't get back online. Good times.

Such a sweet feeling, isn't it?

 

[hamster mk 4]

I only get internet through good ole cat-5.

 

[DoctorWhat]

If there's a free wifi café and I don't feel like coffee, I'll sometimes sit across the street or something... And my school have a wifi password written in 1337... It's friggin 10 chars long! Stupid fools... Maybe I'll get into the central hub controls and show them how stupid they've been (MUAHAHAHAHA)

As for neighbours' passwords I've never stolen their connections. And I happen to know that they are all set up with WPA and using randomly generated 128 bit hex keys. How do I know this? Well, cos I set up most of them. Oh joy...

EDIT: "central hub controls???" router control panel of course...

 

[Chipperz]

I used to connect to my neighbour's Wi Fi with my PSP while my router was down. I don't do it regularly though.

 

[Infinatex]

Haha hell yeah! I used to sit outside peoples houses when I went for a run and download music onto my phone!

 

[Karhax]

And if someone is able to read that paper, I have a bigger problem than a stolen wireless signal.

Ninja removal services aren't cheap (never take a clan's Dragon Scroll.)
Speaking of, my WEP key is one of the few things to adorn my wall. It's affectionately placed next to a picture of me and my girlfriend. I respect the Key, as it is our salvation from those who would turn the Holy Internets against us.

A WEP encryption is pretty useless, it can be broken in a few minutes even without cracking the password.

 

[Cain_Zeros]

Only when mine went down, before my neighbours locked it down. As for mine, it's secure, and no one in this town will think of it. Fools have no historical knowledge.

 

[Bat Vader]

I have my own router that I use for my wireless internet.

When I was in college a friend of mine who was in the room next to mine let me have free wireless internet but charged everyone else.

There was this one woman who came up there and stole internet off of him and when I told him about what she was doing he somehow made it so that the wireless internet would not reach her computer but everyone else's would still work.

Said it had something to do with a Mac address.

 

[GodKlown]

I've never had to steal wi-fi access because no one else in this neighborhood has an internet connection. Sad to live in the middle of frickin' nowheresville sometimes. But at least none of the neighbors has a wi-fi card anyway, so it's not like I have to worry about them stealing our access anyway. We tossed on the encryption and password the day we got it, so it's never been a concern. But it does bother me when people want to piggy-back on your signal. Go to McDonalds down the road and use theirs.

 

[Quad08]

My parents don't trust wireless for this exact reason

 

[clairedelune]

I have fios and a mac, which rarely works. two of my neighbors have unlocked wifi that i can connect to. I use it.

 

[Jiggabyte]

A WEP encryption is pretty useless, it can be broken in a few minutes even without cracking the password.

It's a deterrant. If I was worried about someone wanting free access that bad I'd put up WPA and turn off the router at night like I used to. But that's a hassle. Locking a standard front door isn't that effective against someone who tries hard enough, but if there's an open front door around the corner they're far more likely to try that one. And there's maybe two of those "open doors" in the range of my brother's laptop, so I'd assume we're fine.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

Hmm, perhaps I should encrypt my network at home. But then I'd need to do some work with my 360, Wii, and DS. To answer your questions, no, to all of them. I haven't ever stolen a network, and because my neighbors all have their own internet, and live a pretty good distance away from my house, and therefore my network, I don't think they've ever accessed my wi-fi.

 

[johnman]

I have a few times when we have just been passing by. The best time was last new years day when me and a friend were walking home at 3 in the morning and watching porn on his I phone using somones Linkseys connection. Sounds pretty awful thing to do but we were completely mashed at the time.

 

[Burst6]

my PSP isnt strong enough to catch any signals, so no internet.

 

[Megacherv]

Well if my connection ever goes down, my laptop can just reach my friend's router from 2 houses away (in fact used to do that by default). It seems fair really, I did sell the router to them and set it up for a tenner

...should really tell him about that actually...

 

[super_mumbles]

It's actually pretty surprising to see how many people don't have protected connections. There's a street near where I live and I found about 10 unprotected networks walking down there.

I suppose it's a good thing I just kept walking, not that I can actually do anything using an iPod touch.