Wireless Disconnects

Hi,

I have a broadband connection, a wireless router and a laptop.

This setup worked fine for a long time, however recently next door has put wireless in.

Since then my laptop keeps disconnecting from my home wireless and picking up next door's wireless connection, it's really annoying - can anyone help please? What can I do to rectify this?

Regards, James

Reply to
Jellis
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Reply to
gene martinez

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:01:10 -0800 (PST), Jellis wrote in :

  1. Configure your computer *not* to connect automatically to open networks.
  2. Change the SSID on your wireless router to something unique. (I recommend your address and/or phone number.)
Reply to
John Navas

Is it wise to broadcast the physical location of your router so plainly?

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Yes. I do that with most of my access points using either the address or business name. The idea is that if someone else appears with a wireless network, and there's some manner of interference, it is possible to locate the owner and negotiate a compromise or solution.

For example, one of my neighbors bought some kind of wireless video contrivance that was spewing continuous traffic. That wouldn't be a problem, as it would easy enough to change channels, but this devious contraption had an automatic channel selection feature that caused it to hop around. Something had to be done. The SSID was their family name, so they were easy to find. I banged on the door, introduced myself, explained the problem, and discovered that they were running wireless because they couldn't figure out how to make the ethernet connection work. Removing the CF wireless card caused the ethernet jack to function.

Incidentally, I've seen SSID's with the Lat/Long location as the SSID. I've read about software that will spew random SSID's with every beacon broadcast.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Excellent this sounds good cheers - I'll give this a go.

:-)

Reply to
Jellis

Excellent this sounds good cheers - I'll give this a go.

:-)

""" Is it wise to broadcast the physical location of your router so plainly?

Yes. I do that with most of my access points using either the address or business name. The idea is that if someone else appears with a wireless network, and there's some manner of interference, it is possible to locate the owner and negotiate a compromise or solution. """

I think the guys right, its a great idea to call a network after the family name or the house address. We have a couple of wireless networks fairly close that are named after the family or the house address, this is a great idea as it gives an idea of range when testing new aerials and looking for new networks to 'play' with ...... also provides some good clues of who's network is getting stuffed, and what name to put on forms that you fill in for them.

Reply to
Trespasser

Business name - ok. Business address - matter of public record.

Private address? Can't agree.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

I'm with you, Mark. To a degree, I appreciate it when my neighbors identify themselves via their SSID, but it's not something I do myself or for any of the people I set up.

Reply to
Char Jackson

Well, ok. We can fine tune the level of privacy later. My attitude is that the only thing of importance is the WPA/WPA2 encryption pass phrase. Everything else can be as open as convenient. I don't have a problem with announcing the location of my access points. Other opinions vary from total privacy (announce nothing), to wide open.

Incidentally, there's an RFC for having the access point deliver its location via DHCP:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:08:41 -0600, Char Jackson wrote in :

Because ... ???

Reply to
John Navas

Because I don't want people trivially knowing which house a given network is in.

Jeff's given some good reasons why you might want to set customers up that way, especially commercial ones, but I don't think those really apply to private networks.

And... anyone who needs Jeff to configure their router is hardly likely to be able to figure out which of their neighbours is causing interference, and even less likely to be able to figure out how to stop interfering with other people's networks. :-)

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

We could argue about this all month. Playing devil's advocate:

If I came across a router with a really good passphrase it would indicate a tech-savvy owner. That in turn would indicate potential for high-value computer kit. Which in turn indicates a good target for a burglary. Now the address comes in handy.

Or say you're a stalker and you know your prey is in that apartment building. Snoop their wireless SSID, now you know they're in appt 5.

In both cases you got the info without any digging into their trash, network or mail. In fact, since they deliberately broadcast their address, you haven't even committed any crime.

Have you /ever/ found a retail AP that let you do that? I haven't. I once owned a (wired) router that let you configure the SNMP responses but it forgot them after every powerdown. Excellent design.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:43:42 +0000, Mark McIntyre wrote in :

My own take is that there's no real downside.

My own take is that it can save a great deal of grief when there's an offending wireless network.

My own take is that there are lots of competent computer folks around.

Reply to
John Navas

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:52:16 +0000, Mark McIntyre wrote in :

How could you know it's a "really good passphrase" without actually cracking it?

I think that's a huge stretch. There are much better/easier ways to case potential targets, and computer gear is relatively low on the list of priorities. (Think cash, jewelry, weapons, consumer electronics, etc.).

An address in the SSID does not reveal the owner.

Burglary and stalking are both crimes no matter how the information is obtained.

If you're really that paranoid, then you'd best not use wireless at all, because a transmitter can be located by other means.

Reply to
John Navas

I'll play the devils side kick:

Sorry, but I don't buy the reverse psychology theory. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't. In order to 2nd guess a criminal, you have to actually be a criminal. I don't think either of us qualify. As I understand it, criminals prefer easy targets. If things get complicated, they blunder onward and find an easier target. Car thieves are a good example.

RFC3825 was originally inspired by Cicso. To the best of my knowledge, it hasn't appeared in any of their products. The orignal inspiration was to avoid using RFC1712

which uses DNS for the same functions and requires far too much adminstrative overhead. I once asked several dynamic DNS providers if they were willing to handle transcient geopositioning data in their DNS records. After the initial confusion, the answer was something like "no way in hell".

Using geographic DHCP extensions is also a good way to do lots of things (such as geographic routing for mesh networks). I was working on a prototype that used a similar protocol, but the dot.com funding it went bust. The big problem was that the client required a custom DHCP client in order to use the data.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Then move to a better neighborhood, and seek some help for that paranoia.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

One could just imagine a whole load of AP's delivered to forces in Iraq and Afghanistan which gave out Lat. and Long.

Reply to
LR

You're quoted as saying to have nice long passphrases, you figure it out....

*shrug*

the latter is too hard to fence and nobody keeps large sums of cash in their houses. Oh sure, extras from CSI Miami have safes with $200,000 in used bills, but, er, real people....

In the UK ?

computers /are/ consumer electronics. Computers are highly resellable and newsflash, houses with tech geeks in are likely to also have topend TVs, DVDs, games consoles etc in...

You're too literal minded.

Not relevant - reread what I said.

None of these things particularly bother me because I don't have a house full of expensive computer gear and top-end electronics. My PC is home-made, the kids have a 2nd hand N66 etc.

Sure, but why make it easy? Who was it that security is an onion?

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

nice...

You may be right. I'll settle for "I value my privacy and don't like broadcasting my location to all and sundry". I'm well aware that the smarter people out there can figure it out anyway - but as you say...

.... so having your AP's SSID as "SOMEWHERE_OTR" seems a good way to say "nope, nothing easy here, try the next house".

I'm wild with astonishment.

If I had a quid for every idea a vendor asked for but then failed to implement, I'd have, er, some money.

:-)

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

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