Using someone elses wireless...

Discussion in 'Electricians' Talk' started by accaski, Dec 24, 2007.

  1. accaski

    accaski New Member

    Ive been without internet access for the last few weeks for reasons i dont understand but im now away from home in a town. I turned on me laptop yesterday to look at some pics and it picked up 8 separate networks,2 of which were unsecured. Im now using it untill i sort out my own,is this illegal?
    Merry Christmas one and all...;)
     
  2. sinewave

    sinewave Screwfix Select

    Who cares?


    Yer hardly going to be effecting the 'robbed party's' bandwidth are ya so the chance's of getting rumbled are virtualy nil! ;)
     
  3. X

    X New Member

    is this illegal

    Yes..

    1. its theft of someone's electricity (albeit a very small amount)

    2. its hacking into a private network.

    However..
     
  4. *welsh.wizard*

    *welsh.wizard* New Member

    It is, Yes.


    But....




    Merry Christmas, Me olde Mucker.
     
  5. *welsh.wizard*

    *welsh.wizard* New Member

    I'm off, ta ra chaps.



    May pop back on later? - If not, have a "Good 'Un".





    ;)
     
  6. Clark Kent

    Clark Kent New Member

    I think wireless at present, is a big thumbs down, unless anyone can convince me otherwise..


    :)
     
  7. andy.sp

    andy.sp New Member

    It is illegal under the Communications Act 2003 and people have been prosecuted see here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/18/uk_war_drivingarrests/

    However, if you're sat at home using someone elses connection it's very unlikely you would get caught / prosecuted as it would be very difficult to prove you had intentionally connected to someone elses connection :)
     
  8. oliver1234

    oliver1234 New Member

    Strictly speaking yes it is illegal but very difficult to get caught.

    I very much doubt that anyone would investigate it unless you were`downloading very dodgy material!

    Loads of people leave their wireless networks unsecured!
     
  9. accaski

    accaski New Member

    Why dont a load of people in a street all chip in and just use a communual connection,it makes sense and would cost everyone peanuts..?
     
  10. andy.sp

    andy.sp New Member

    Extension,

    Wireless is completely fine to use for domestic purposes as long as you secure the router appropriately:-

    1. Change the default admin password on the router.
    2. Enable MAC address filtering, so only your machine(s) can communicate with the router.
    3. Disable SSID broadcasting on the router.
    4. Enable WPA encryption (or WEP if this is not available).

    Not hard to do and will only take 5-10 mins.
     
  11. andy.sp

    andy.sp New Member

    Why dont a load of people in a street all chip in and
    just use a communual connection,it makes sense and
    would cost everyone peanuts..?

    In essence that's what most ISPs give you with a domestic connection. They then divide up the bandwidth between x houses and you get what is called a 'contention ratio' for your service. A common one is 1:10 which means 10 people share the same local 'service'. Hence traffic is slower at different times of the day depending on other people using the shared service at the same time.

    Commercial connections are much more expensive due to prohibitive SLAs and dedicated lines.
     
  12. accaski

    accaski New Member

    But if i pay a tenner a month,and i allow me 10 neighbours to use my connection it would cost us a £1 each,or would i get massive slow down..?
     
  13. audi-evo

    audi-evo Active Member

    Stealing broadband is theft.
    People stealing broadband often do it for fraudulant reasons and downloading illegal things.
    If someone downloads kiddyporn sitting outside your house it will be traced to you ip.
    Also newer routers show who is connected.
    I wouldn't be ammused if i found someone nicking my broadband.
    If you pay for sky would you be happy with people looking through your window to watch the footy?
     
  14. andy.sp

    andy.sp New Member

    But if i pay a tenner a month,and i allow me 10
    neighbours to use my connection it would cost us a £1
    each,or would i get massive slow down..?

    If you all use it at different times then it would be fine. If you all used it at the same time it would be very slow.

    Think of it as attaching 10 showers to 1 waste pipe and turning all the showers on at once. The waste would back up. The pipe is only so wide and sized accordingly.

    Additionally, the ISP assigns you an IP address when you use the internet. This may be used to investigate you for downloading inappropriate material. If you let your neighbours use your internet connection and they do something dodgy / illegal it will be traced back to ............you.

    That's why hackers use other people's connections to hide their tracks. Do you really trust Mr Bush at No12 and Mr Bin Laden at No13 that much :O?
     
  15. oliver1234

    oliver1234 New Member

    But if i pay a tenner a month,and i allow me 10
    neighbours to use my connection it would cost us a
    £1
    each,or would i get massive slow down..?

    If you all use it at different times then it would be
    fine. If you all used it at the same time it would be
    very slow.

    Think of it as attaching 10 showers to 1 waste pipe
    and turning all the showers on at once. The waste
    would back up. The pipe is only so wide and sized
    accordingly.

    Additionally, the ISP assigns you an IP
    address when you use the internet. This may be used
    to investigate you for downloading inappropriate
    material. If you let your neighbours use your
    internet connection and they do something dodgy /
    illegal it will be traced back to ............you.

    That's why hackers use other people's connections to
    hide their tracks. Do you really trust Mr Bush at
    No12 and Mr Bin Laden at No13 that much :O?

    The problem with securing your network is that if someone does hack your secure network (and it can be quite easy) it makes it difficult for you to defend yourself against allegations of downloading dodgy material.

    WEP security is incredibly easy to hack and mac filtering is equally easy to ovecome.

    WPA is more difficult as long as you use secure keys.

    I drove around my local estate about 2 years ago with a Wifi enabled PDA and found 12 unsecured networks within a half mile radius.
     
  16. andy.sp

    andy.sp New Member

    The problem with securing your network is that if
    someone does hack your secure network (and it can be
    quite easy) it makes it difficult for you to defend
    yourself against allegations of downloading dodgy
    material.

    You can never remove all the risk - it's about minimising it. An appropriately secured wireless network will in all probability not be hacked as the hacker will move onto a weaker system to use as their cover. A hacker will always go for a system with the greatest attack surface. Are you suggesting that you shouldn't secure your network because if you do get hacked you will be more likely to be prosecuted for any dodgy activity? That would seem illogical to me.

    WEP security is incredibly easy to hack and mac
    filtering is equally easy to ovecome.

    WPA is more difficult as long as you use secure
    keys.
    agreed

    I drove around my local estate about 2 years ago with
    a Wifi enabled PDA and found 12 unsecured networks
    within a half mile radius.

    A determined, intelligent hacker, given enough time and sniffed data will more than likely break into a secure wireless network. However, we are not talking about your average man in the street here. If you want to simply stop Joe Blogs from stealing your bandwidth MAC filtering, SSID disablement and WPA are more than adequate.

    Oh and Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas Olly :)
     
  17. sinewave

    sinewave Screwfix Select

    > I drove around my local estate about 2 years ago with
    a Wifi enabled PDA and found 12 unsecured networks
    within a half mile radius.





    Fek em!



    If 'they' can't be arsed to protect it then Rob away!
     
  18. audi-evo

    audi-evo Active Member

    "If 'they' can't be arsed to protect it then Rob away!"

    says a lot about the world we live, if it ain't bolted down it's fair game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I remember unlocked cars, front doors, kids toys/bikes left in the garden.
    Seems now we need locks on our locks!
     
  19. oliver1234

    oliver1234 New Member

    The problem with securing your network is that if
    someone does hack your secure network (and it can
    be
    quite easy) it makes it difficult for you to
    defend
    yourself against allegations of downloading dodgy
    material.

    You can never remove all the risk - it's about
    minimising it. An appropriately secured wireless
    network will in all probability not be hacked as the
    hacker will move onto a weaker system to use as their
    cover. A hacker will always go for a system with the
    greatest attack surface. Are you suggesting that you
    shouldn't secure your network because if you do get
    hacked you will be more likely to be prosecuted for
    any dodgy activity? That would seem illogical to
    me.


    WEP security is incredibly easy to hack and mac
    filtering is equally easy to ovecome.

    WPA is more difficult as long as you use secure
    keys.
    agreed

    I drove around my local estate about 2 years ago
    with
    a Wifi enabled PDA and found 12 unsecured networks
    within a half mile radius.

    A determined, intelligent hacker, given enough
    time and sniffed data will more than likely break
    into a secure wireless network. However, we are not
    talking about your average man in the street here. If
    you want to simply stop Joe Blogs from stealing your
    bandwidth MAC filtering, SSID disablement and WPA are
    more than adequate.


    Oh and Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas Olly :)

    Hi Andy and merry Christmas to you too!

    No I'm not suggesting that you leave a wireless network unsecured, many people do but personnaly I have locked mine down quite tightly.

    But it is true to say that if someone were to hack your network in order to download dodgy material it would be more difficult to disprove that it was you that did it.

    In the early days of wireless networks people bought their own wireless routers which are generally insecure out of the box.

    Nowdays many routers are supplied by ISPs and are already reasonably secure.

    I hacked my neighbors as an experiment and even loaded new firmware on his router so I could up his signal strenth. (he was a mate and I told him I was doing it by the way) I have since secured it for him.

    Some people used to leave their routers open and publish their addresses so anybody could use it as a hot spot!

    Acca's idea re: sharing is actually quite viable if you know your neighbors well and keep routing logs so you know who has been on the dogy sites!
     
  20. andy.sp

    andy.sp New Member

    Acca's idea re: sharing is actually quite viable if
    you know your neighbors well and keep routing logs so
    you know who has been on the dogy sites!

    Ah but wireless routers give out dynamic IPs via DHCP to their clients and these IPs are logged, not the MACs, so you would never know who has been where. You could assign them all static IPs of 192.168.0.x then you would know who has been where but it's a lot of admin for £1 /month, could you bothered? I know I couldn't.
     

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