Help! Wi-fi hijacked!

Tanabe

Hi,

I've had to switch AirPort on my iMac to 'off'. I've just noticed that I can't get into my network. I didn't have any password set up on it but now it's asking me for one. Can anybody please help, thanks.

Gordon

Try switching the router on and off slowly.

whiterebel

Tanabe wrote: »

Hi,

I've had to switch AirPort on my iMac to 'off'. I've just noticed that I can't get into my network. I didn't have any password set up on it but now it's asking me for one. Can anybody please help, thanks.

What are you using? An Airport Base Station, or a router?

Tanabe

Hi Gordon,

I don't have a router but I powered off pc & switched modem on and off but still nothing. The signal level was going from full to zero with the base station ID coming & going but then it asks for a password to join my own network? Looks like somebody else has locked it? What should/can I do?

I now have AirPort switched off.

Tanabe

whiterebel wrote: »

What are you using? An Airport Base Station, or a router?

Hi,

Yeah my iPhone used to just automatically pick up the wifi from my iMac so I guess that's the AirPort base station? I don't have a router.

Thanks.

MrVestek

Looks like you'll have to hard reset the airport back to factory defaults and set it up again...

babypink

i'm struggling to understand where your wifi signal is coming from.

Do you have your net connection going straight to your iMac and then sharing it from the iMac over wireless, or do you have the net connection as a standalone box that is broadcasting wifi that you then connect to with your devices?

Tanabe

Hi Babypink,

It's the former, my internet connects straight to my iMac via ethernet cable.

I'm going to have a look at network settings in system preferences and try and reset back to factory as somebody previously suggested.

I miss my wi-fi already! Anybody got any other suggestions? Was it most likely hijacked?

Thanks.

Tanabe

Right folks,

I've had a look at network settings in system preferences but no joy. Basically if I try to connect to my network it asks me for a password (which I didn't have set up).

Any thoughts?

Cabaal

Reset your router/airport extreme and set it back up from the default settings, problem solved

Doesn't matter if anybody changed any details then as they'll be all default so you can sort everything again

Sad Professor

I'm confused here... Let me get this straight, you don't have a wireless router, your connection is direct from your modem to your iMac via an ethernet cable. Correct? Then you DON'T have a wifi network, so how can it be hijacked?

Unless your talking about your iPhone and that you've been using Internet Sharing on your iMac to wirelessly share your internet connection with it. If so the appropriate settings can be found in System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing on your iMac.

But you must have set this up at some point. The iPhone would not have just automatically connected to your iMac.

Cabaal

Tanabe wrote: »

I don't have a router but I powered off pc & switched modem on and off but still nothing.

The signal level was going from full to zero with the base station ID coming & going but then it asks for a password to join my own network?

Ok so you have only a modem and you don't use a router as per your post but you also have a base station and you use a network key to join it,

Make up your mind which you have and don't have and get back to us then,

luckat

Tanabe, what exactly are you running?

You have a Mac - what kind (MacBook, iMac...?) - and a PC.

What operating system are you running on each - Vista on the PC and Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4.11?) on the Mac?

Do you have a router? I know you say you don't, but if you have an AirPort Express base station, that actually is a wireless router.

Tanabe

Oops! I actually think it was me hijacking somebody's wifi all along!:o

Thanks for all your replies folks, I haven't an iota when it comes to this sorta thing.

I don't have wireless internet at all, I was under the assumption that when my iPhone picked up the network showing in AirPort on my iMac that somehow this was 'normal', like it was built in with the Mac & phone?

I think Sad Professor pretty much summed it up for me, thanks for all the help guys.

Right....I'm off to McDonalds for myself....I'll have the free wifi instead of the fires with that, thanks very much!:D:D

Sad Professor

Tanabe wrote: »

Oops! I actually think it was me hijacking somebody's wifi all along!:o

Yeah that's what I thought.

hehe

However you can still set up your iMac to share your internet connection wirelessly with your iPhone like I described.

Tanabe

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah that's what I thought.

hehe

However you can still set up your iMac to share your internet connection wirelessly with your iPhone like I described.

Yeah I'm trying to do that but it's doesn't seem to be working for me???

Web pages on iPhone don't seem to be loading for some reason? I'm following the path you gave:

System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing

I have internet sharing switched on, sharing my connection from built-in ethernet to computers using AirPort.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks.

Sad Professor

What OS are you using? Tiger or Leopard? It's slightly different in each. I can explain better if you tell me.

But basically in the Internet Sharing window there should be a button for "Airport options". Click on it to enter a network name and password with WEP security. You'll need to then enter these details on your iphone.

Tanabe

Sad Professor wrote: »

What OS are you using? Tiger or Leopard? It's slightly different in each. I can explain better if you tell me.

But basically in the Internet Sharing window there should be a button for "Airport options". Click on it to enter a network name and password with WEP security. You'll need to then enter these details on your iphone.

Hi,

I'm running Mac OS X Version 10.4.11

I have that done like you say but it doesn't appear to work

iPhone has picked up network but pages not loading.

Sad Professor

Are you sure the iPhone is connecting to the network? Is the Airport symbol/bars in the corner? Is it dropping this connection then?

And is Airport turned on on the iMac? If Internet Sharing is correctly set up the Airport menu symbol should have an arrow pointing up.

Tanabe

Sad Professor wrote: »

Are you sure the iPhone is connecting to the network? Is the Airport symbol/bars in the corner? Is it dropping this connection then?

And is Airport turned on on the iMac? If Internet Sharing is correctly set up the Airport menu symbol should have an arrow pointing up.

Yup, AirPort symbol is in the corner of iPhone (albeit one bar) so signal isn't too strong?

AirPort is turned on, on the iMac. Exactly like you said, AirPort symbol has the arrow pointing upwards.

I have an NTL wireless router lying around the house, I'd nearly give myself the headache of setting it all up just to have the beautiful wi-fi I had on the iPhone back again.

Sad Professor

Tanabe wrote: »

Yup, AirPort symbol is in the corner of iPhone (albeit one bar) so signal isn't too strong?

And you entered the network details (with password) in Settings > WiFi > on the iPhone? Does it give any errors? You should be getting full signal if your sitting next to the imac.

Perhaps try changing the wireless channel in your iMac's Internet Sharing prefs, where you set up the network.

MrVestek

Hang on... you're trying to get your iPhone to connect to a network being generated by the iMac itself whilst also using the netgear WGR614v7 supplied with your NTL connection to get the iMac connected to the internet.

I may be missing something here but why can't you just set both the iPhone and iMac on the same network through the netgear and then have them talk to eachother via that network?