How to tell if somoene is sharing your wireless?

[Dnana]

I have to work on securing my wireless access - I have a Linksys 2.4 Ghz Wireless Access Point Router (802.11b) hooked up to my Cable modem and that is a separeate topic - I will look into securing it but I was wondering - hearing about neighbors sharing your wireless and all got me curious to finding out if there is a way to tell others are sharing your wireless access? I don't know if I would ever detect it by slow download speeds because I hardly ever download - is there a program or place to go on the computer to tell if your wireless access is being access or shared by others?

I hope the question makes sense. I did a search and could not find anything about how to detect people using your access if your wireless is unsecured or not sufficiently secured. Thanks - Tom.

 

[Fardringle]

The amount of information you can get depends a great deal on your router, but most routers should have a Wireless Status page of some sort that will show you a list of DHCP clients for the router. This is a list of computers that have recently (or currently) received an IP address from the router.

 

[skyking]

most routers have a log with the external and requesting ip listed.

 

[FreshPrince]

Originally posted by: Dnana
I have to work on securing my wireless access - I have a Linksys 2.4 Ghz Wireless Access Point Router (802.11b) hooked up to my Cable modem and that is a separeate topic - I will look into securing it but I was wondering - hearing about neighbors sharing your wireless and all got me curious to finding out if there is a way to tell others are sharing your wireless access? I don't know if I would ever detect it by slow download speeds because I hardly ever download - is there a program or place to go on the computer to tell if your wireless access is being access or shared by others?

I hope the question makes sense. I did a search and could not find anything about how to detect people using your access if your wireless is unsecured or not sufficiently secured. Thanks - Tom.

install ethereal or airsnort and start capturing the packets! you can also setup a fake access point that redirects any leechers to a web page that says FU

and if you really want to be tricky, setup a fake bank of america page and steal their online passcode!! <-- don't take this seriously...

 

[JackMDS]

Let say you do find an Extra used IP IN THE Routers IP table.

What then, you can not proof who it is any way.

Every one can post an easy ?Macho? phrase, but in reality it is hard to proof who or what is the additional IP.

So calm down and use your Wireless Security settings.

Link: Wireless Security for the Home User.

:sun:

 

[Nothinman]

Let say you do find an Extra used IP IN THE Routers IP table.

What then, you can not proof who it is any way.

Sure you can, they're on your network now and most likely they're running Windows so it's not terribly difficult to get some information from the OS and determine which neighbor it is. No, it's not infallible, but it should be good enough most of the time.

 

[FreshPrince]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Let say you do find an Extra used IP IN THE Routers IP table.

What then, you can not proof who it is any way.

Sure you can, they're on your network now and most likely they're running Windows so it's not terribly difficult to get some information from the OS and determine which neighbor it is. No, it's not infallible, but it should be good enough most of the time.

most routers nowadays have simple logging function, even the cheap linksys/netgear...etc ones. It should be no problems to know who is on your wireless network. As soon as you see an ip or MAC address that isn't one of your computers, it should be clear enough to proove that someone is stealing your bandwidth.

now I understand that you can't say who that person is because people can spoof MAC addresses easily, but there's software out there that can pin point where the source is coming from, and you can kind of get an idea which one of your neighbors is stealing your internet...or all of them

the easiest way is just lock down your access point...

hide the ssid, use MAC/IP filtering, WPA and you can go as far as using certificates, depending on the device. But doing so will also make it hard for your friends to snap into your wireless network. But, XP has a cool feature that will allow you to save profiles for a particular AP and automatically log into them.

Me, personally, I don't use wireless at home because of the radiation....

when I'm on the road, I just have to bite the bullet

 

[JackMDS]

It is one thing to be able to find some raw data, and than what?

You confront the person? Call the Police, etc.?

There is some thing in life called Functional (may be one needs to be a grownup in order to understand it).

Maintaining an Open Wireless and then chasing people that end up logging to it, deliberately, mistakenly, or whatever, is Not among the functional things to waste time On.

:sun:

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Maintaining an Open Wireless and then chasing people that end up logging to it, deliberately, mistakenly, or whatever, is Not among the functional things to waste time On.

And, on top of that, even if nobody is using you as an access point, there's the small matter of ANYBODY being able to read everything you send across the airwaves. If traffic isn't encrypted, it's trivial to grab usernames/passwords, etc. THAT would concern me.....

Just turn on encryption (preferably WPA or better), and be done with it.

 

[Madwand1]

This question falls into the category of "closing the gate after the animals have run out". Of course, it's good to know if you have a break-in, but to have an open gate and check "did the animals run out yet?" from time to time is a silly approach to security. (In practice, some animals run out, and come back for feeding time, not unlike some intruders.) OK, enough on that.

From what I see, the older gen 802.11b AP's were not upgraded to support WPA, and could only do WEP (check for firmware/driver upgrades to be sure). WEP is not secure enough these days, so I'd personally look into buying a new AP. However, there's a technology change coming (802.11n), so I might delay that purchase for some more time and use WEP, SSID hiding, and MAC filtering. If you're still worried about the original question, you should look for a new AP/router with good logging capability.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/bowman_03july28.mspx

 

[FreshPrince]

most of those cheap devices also have syslog built-in

so you could potentially build a syslog server and capture all packets at all times and send it to your syslog server and then parse it to useable information.

me, personally, like the other guys said, just turn on the security for it. but for health reasons, I still refuse to use it for home. I find it more comfortable to sit at a desk than have the notebook sit on my lap...

 

[nweaver]

most rogue users will pass a WEP encrypted ap on by, as it's not worth the time to hack into when there are 3 unsecured in the neighborhood.

 

[FreshPrince]

Originally posted by: nweaver
most rogue users will pass a WEP encrypted ap on by, as it's not worth the time to hack into when there are 3 unsecured in the neighborhood.

right.

you can have a $50 lock or a $500 lock, they both provide general purpose theft prevention. but if someone wants in, you can have a $50,000 lock and they'll still find a way in

 

[Dnana]

Thanks for the responses.

I am not looking to police an unsecured network. I am just curious as to how one finds out if my AP is being shared by others. I think if I found someone using it and I was worried about my computer being accessed I would turn the AP off until I figured out how to secure it.

I was hoping for some more specifics on how to check - I really need a security for dummies type of approach - thanks.

 

[skyking]

Look for the log in the router. you can often watch real-time as somebody else surfs the net. If you know your IP, then figuring out the extra user is easy.