If you suspect one of your neighbors does have a wireless and their computer/printer is picking up my signal?

Question

what does that mean? Do they have access to what I am doing, researching, writing etc? How can you find out if that is happening and who it is? In other words, if I don't just want to reload my printer but want to find out who I've been sharing with, is that possible? Thanks, Nancy

Answer 1

Their machine can see your wireless router, because it is broadcasting that it is there. You need to secure your router by setting an SSID, and turning on MAC filtering. Your machine, on the otherhand, might be broadcasting that it exists, and they might be able to see your shares (shared docs)

Right click My Computer and go to Properties. Computer Name tab...Change button...Change your Workgroup to something other than the default MSHOME.

To configure your router, open a browser and type the gateway IP (192.168.0.1 or similiar). Enter the username and password. Go to Wireless. Set the SSID, and set it to the same on your PC's. Then let your machines connect to it, and then set MAC filtering to prevent others from connecting. If you see a MAC that does not belong to your machine(s), remove it from the allowed MACs. To see your machine's MAC, Start...Run...cmd...OK..then at the > type IPCONFIG and hit Enter.

Answer 2

There are various ways in which your computer could be intruded upon, depending on the devices you are using. It could be through bluetooth, wifi, infra red and so on. To secure your computer, take the following steps immediately:-

1. Turn your firewall on (if it isn't already). In windows XP and higher this feature is pre-installed, and you can access it from the security centre in control panel. If you are using some other operating system, you can download a free firewall software from the net - like 'tinypersonalfirewall' - search it on the net.

2. Be very sure while allowing 'exceptions' in your firewall settings.

3. Open my networks and see which all connections are active. These would probably include your internet connection and the wireless connection you are using. Enable firewall for each of them.

4. In my network places go to entire networks and see who all you are connected to.

5. Do not give permission for sharing your files / folders or peripherals to anyone you are not sure of. You can even disable file and printer sharing (from control panel ) if you are not using it with anyone.

All the best.

Answer 3

You need to have a competent computer technician examine the settings on your PC, to make sure that you and only you can access your stuff.

With the latest stuff, you can have an encrypted password known only to you, that will prevent other people from accessing your stuff.

Now you may feel that there is nothing you doing that it matters if anyone else can view what you do or mess with what is on your PC, but that is a dangerous attidude.

Some day you will need to use a credit card to buy something on-line ... do you want your neighbors to get your credit card account, pin #, password, etc, that you use to access your financials?

If other people can access your wireless ports, they can pub bad stuff on your PC, use it as a launch pad for criminal behavior, that you will be unable to prove was not done by you.

Let's suppose you have a laptop in the trunk of your car, with the wireless turned on ... that is like a STEAL ME in neaon lights on the radio ... there's been parking garages where a score of cards got broken into ... in every single one of them one of the things stolen was a laptop that was locked in the trunk, but the owner had left it broadcasting the wireless, not realizing that would be a good idea to turn off when not in use.

You need a competent computer technician to show you how to do this.

Nowadays, computers come with the settings default STEAL ME, mess me up, mess with me, steal from me, use me as a criminal, etc. If you are not an expert on this stuff, you need to find an expert IN PERSON from a lotcal computer store to take care of this for you.

I select my computer stores, by wandering in, armed with some dumb questions that I already know the answers to. I get the answer, politely say thankyou, and continue on my way, knowing which comptuer stores have honest workers, and which have crooks on their payroll, whose only interest is in selling us more stuff that we do not need.

Answer 4

yes, i could go to a starbucks right now and intercept people's instant messages if i really wanted to. any data that passes through your router can be intercepted, and they could remotely control your PC (take over) if your security settings are low enough. there is also no good reason to "reload" your printer. simply password protect your router unless you want to share. to fint out who has been on your connection, check your router's page. the documentation that came with your router should describe how to do it.

Answer 5

Yeah, if they know what they're doing, they can see everything your doing, including any financial information. Your wireless can be configuered to have incription and only let your hardware access the network, but if you've never done it before, you should definitly have someone from a tech support organization like geek squad or firedog set it up for you, otherwise you could just screw up your network even more.

Answer 6

Just enable security in your router.In your address bar of your browser type 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 or check your manual and access your router.Select the wireless tab and there enable security . While you are there hide your SSID

Answer 7

They are stealing your internet thats all. I would call the company and put a lock on your internet. Call your compay and if you can get a password on your internet it is best and yes I think there is a chance they can look into your stuff but they are mainly just stealing your internet

Answer 8

what you should do:

make sure your firewall is running full blast,
make sure printer sharing is totally off
lock up your network tight.

email if you have any problems at all or have questions on how to do ANY of these things.

Answer 9

if you don't want them to acces your wireless printer and internet just put a secuerity lock on it

Answer 10

i had that problem, and we just put a password on our network; that way anyone who would like to access it has to enter the password...and obviously the neighbors wouldnt know it :]

good luck :]