Neighbours stealing our broadband?

boomerang

Our next door neighbours approached us a few days ago to ask if we'd be prepared to share our broadband connection, and they'd pay us a certain amount a month for it. They'd use a router to access our connection. I said no, because it'll slow down our connection and I need it to be fast as possible. They said fair enough. Now I notice our speeds have slowed down to a crawl especially at night - certainly no faster than our old dial-up connection. There must be away I can prevent this - can anyone technically minded explain it? We get our broadband via an ethernet connection from an antenna on the roof.

Edited to add: our speed does vary a lot, but this is really slow and it seems to have coincided very suspiciously with their suggestion...

byte

Do you have a wifi router with wifi enabled?

AlmightyCushion

Do you have a wireless router connected to your broadband?

Spear

boomerang wrote: »

There must be away I can prevent this - can anyone technically minded explain it? We get our broadband via an ethernet connection from an antenna on the roof.

Turn on encryption, WPA preferably with a decent length non-dictionary encryption key.

boomerang

Thanks all,

It's Ice Broadband, no router involved, just a a cable running down from the antenna into a power adaptor, the ethernet cable runs from the power adaptor into the back of the CPU.

I'm not in any way technical, so if someone could explain how to encrypt the signal using teeny weensy baby steps, that'd be great!

bandit197

There is no way they could be stealing it if you don't have a wireless network set up in your home. Am I understanding you properly, your computer is connected to the internet by an ethernet cable right? No wireless router involved?

Spear

boomerang wrote: »

Thanks all,

It's Ice Broadband, no router involved, just a a cable running down from the antenna into a power adaptor, the ethernet cable runs from the power adaptor into the back of the CPU.

I'm not in any way technical, so if someone could explain how to encrypt the signal using teeny weensy baby steps, that'd be great!

If there's no wireless router then there's nothing to encrypt. How did you imagine he was stealing your bandwidth?

boomerang

My connection has slowed down considerably in the past few days - more so than normal.

Guess I can just blame my crummy ISP then!

Thing is, I want to get a router so I can access the web on my laptop as well as the PC, so I should still look into this, right?

Sponge Bob

go with o2 or vodafone instead for 3g .

FruitLover

Spear wrote: »

If there's no wireless router then there's nothing to encrypt. How did you imagine he was stealing your bandwidth?

ESP, clearly. Haven't you seen Scanners??

boomerang

Thanks Sponge Bob, but unfortunately only option around these parts is Ice, I've tried 02/vodafone/3 but there's no signal, alas.

crawler

boomerang wrote: »

Thanks Sponge Bob, but unfortunately only option around these parts is Ice, I've tried 02/vodafone/3 but there's no signal, alas.

Where abouts are you located - the folks here know more than most of the telcos when it comes to broadband availability in Ireland!

FibbersON

I had a problem with ICE out around Dunboyne area, they said they're upgrading a dodgey antenna of theirs. And should be done soon, Ring the technical supportand see how they can help, they offered to send an engineer to direct my antenna at another antenna, but all of a sudden it sped up again so no need.

Black_Knight

How did your neighbour know you had broadband if he couldnt see you had a wireless internet connection?
Was he going door to door?

Xcellor

If you had Eircom BB with their wireless solution you'd have more to worry about. All of my neighbours have WEP set up but have not secured their routers properly as per the exploit reported on the news a while back. I wonder just how many people have their connections piggy backed but live in ignorance. I would imagine quite a large % especially in city areas.

Spear

Black_Knight wrote: »

How did your neighbour know you had broadband if he couldnt see you had a wireless internet connection?
Was he going door to door?

ICE use wireless, just not Wifi, so there'd still be antenna on the roof.

sham08

Xcellor wrote: »

If you had Eircom BB with their wireless solution you'd have more to worry about.

I have Eircom BB with Wireless enabled, I have WEP turned on with my own WEP key, is this sufficient or should I also restrict it to registered MAC address?

Spear

sham08 wrote: »

I have Eircom BB with Wireless enabled, I have WEP turned on with my own WEP key, is this sufficient or should I also restrict it to registered MAC address?

Change to WPA instead.

jor el

sham08 wrote: »

I have Eircom BB with Wireless enabled, I have WEP turned on with my own WEP key, is this sufficient or should I also restrict it to registered MAC address?

MAC address restrictions is pretty much a waste of time. Anyone savvy enough to crack the WEP encryption will have no bother getting around MAC restrictions. It's good you changed the default eircom WEP key, as this will protect against the casual hacker, but anyone who wants your broadband will have little problem in getting at it, unless you change to WPA.

padair

Spear wrote: »

Change to WPA instead.

I agree with WPA.. I think the best way of cracknig WPA is using a dictionary attack, but if you put in some charadters that are not in dictionaries it will make the password near impossible to crack.. but all can be cracked given enough time.

shakin

the mobile broadband from 3 is ok can be slow at times.


keep on piggybacking!!!

uncle_sam_ie

padair wrote: »

I agree with WPA.. I think the best way of cracknig WPA is using a dictionary attack, but if you put in some charadters that are not in dictionaries it will make the password near impossible to crack.. but all can be cracked given enough time.

Just remember to change that long random WPA password often and you'll be fine. But to be honest, so many people are using the easily cracked WEP or nothing at all, that I doubt you'd hardly get anyone trying to hack your password.

Marlow

Black_Knight wrote: »

How did your neighbour know you had broadband if he couldnt see you had a wireless internet connection?

That's easy. The lad has already told us, he's getting his broadband from an antenna on the roof !

What do you anticipate, when you see a panel on the roof that doesn't looks like eircom's ? That it's for TV ???

/Martin