Is there any way to tell if my neighbour is piggybacking?

I'm not familiar with the Belkin router software, but they should all have a page that lists all the wireless clients that are currently connected. So when you suspect something, take a look and see if you see any additional clients other than your own.

A more advanced procedure would be to have the router log all connections so that you can see the history. Your router may or may not support this.

It's odd that your speed test would show full speed yet a page as simple as google would take a minute to load.. something isn't right.. as suggested check the routers DHCP client table for any clients that are not your own.. you also might look into whether or not your router will allow MAC filtering.. this would only allow clients to connect to your router after you have entered there MAC accress.. Or you might just try changing your WEP key for a few days and see if anything changes.. try some stuff and let us know.

Adair

Thanks, Adair, and Bucky who also answered this query.

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-- Oren

"Well, it doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it happens constantly."

While your internet connection may not actually be congested, the wireless access point you both connect to might be. If you look in the web-based management page for the Belkin device, it should show you how many MAC addresses are connected - if there's more than just your computer(s) listed, then yes, someone is piggybacking.

You should def> The reason I ask is that my wireless system occasionally runs at a snail > pace.

The Belkin 54G gives you a page which shows connected clients. But also, the obvious things to do to PREVENT unauthorised access are:

1) Change the router's admin password IMMEDIATELY! 2) Change the encryption from the (easy to crack) WEP to the (harder to crack) WPA and use a LONG random string as the encryption key. This will make it harder for a dictionary cracking attempt to succeed. 3) Set up MAC address filtering 4) Stop your router from broadcasting its SSID

This should make any attempts to piggyback on to your connection very much harder to achieve. Cracking WEP encryption is not difficult and typically takes only minutes to do. WPA, with the provisio that you use a LONG, RANDOM, string is much hardere to crack.

Regards,

Tim Kearsley

Good advice from all involved, thanks.

Just keep in mind that if you decide to keep your router from broadcasting its SSID, that you REMEMBER what that SSID is and how to stop it from hiding itself. I've a friend who can't extend service to any visitors to his house because he's forgotten how to keep his router from hiding its SSID. He had to manually reset to factory defaults and it was quite irritating to get everything back up to speed.

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On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:47:49 -0500, arceelover wrote in :

Turing off SSID broadcast *won't* improve security and is a *bad* idea in general. Likewise MAC Filtering. The only thing that really works is WPA with a strong passphrase.

A sensation of weight on your back, a strong breath at the back of your neck are all very strong evidence of piggybacking. I would advise you to turn round and check if it IS him. It could be someone you don't even know.

This kind of letter is very ill advised in this forum, you will soon draw the attention of people with funny names like "asslovers" and such, beware.

On a more serious tone, just fire up wireshark and SEE who is using your network. You feel there is someone there, sniff and see.

FWIW