Is it Possible to steal someone' s DSL?

[Poohbee]

Here is the situation. My brother in law wanted to get internet in his company so he thought about getting DSL. He has a neighboring business that was interested in getting internet too for their business and the guy asked my brother in law if he was willing to share the internet with him. My brother in law asked for my advice and i told him that I would be cautious about something like that because you don't know what that person might be doing with the b/w and i believe it is against terms of Service to share connections across addresses. So a month or so go by and my brother in law gets DSL from and he enjoys it very much. Time flies and a few weeks later he calls me and asks me if it is possible for someone to use your DSL line without you knowing. I asked him why he asked that and he told me that the neighboring business suddenly had internet too! and that got me thinking about the possiblity of my brother in law's DSL being hijacked.

Now the possiblity is there, but i was thinking that without the DSL modem the neighbor won't be able to get into the DSL. Am I right? or is it possible for someone to steal someone elses DSL line?

 

[Rage187]

not unless he's stealing it via wireless. You just can't plug in a DSL modem and leech someones connection.

 

[RebateMonger]

Most DSL connections not only require that you be on the right phone line, but that you have a UserName/Password, also.

 

[Poohbee]

thank you foryour replies.. i kinda had the same ideas but needed reassurance. thank u again.!!

 

[dhkkim]

you cant.

dsl is directly goes to your home phone line and dsl wont work if two dslmodem is plugged in same home phone line.

 

[Atheus]

You probably could do it by tapping the phone line. Sniff the password when they connect and then connect yourself when they go offline. Or if they never disconnect you could just inject your packets onto the wire along with theirs. Would require some significant skills though, and probably wouldn't be worth it.

Wireless would be the other option.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

If he has a wireless router he needs to lock it down, or better yet, disable the antenna if he doesn't need wireless. I can't believe how many people buy a wireless router, and never use the wireless but leave it wide open.