Neighbours VM connection

[General Angel]

Originally Posted by whydoIneedatech

If its not broadcasting then it is probably switched off as it would still show as a secured network otherwise, he may need some help going secure.

i wrote down how to secure his connection along with hiding the SSID, so either the SSID is hidden and it is secured or its how you said and he still needs help, i will check tommorrow to see if its all ok
Im glad that having permission isnt illegal and immoral because i was starting to think it was phew!

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by General Angel

You are making a lot of sense, its really not that hard to secure a wireless connection if you use the disk or are tech savvy, so perhaps its the ignorance of the customers thats to blame

Some people are more interested in changing the network name to something silly like Aston Villa, or their own name so they can remind themselves of who they are at a later date

[General Angel]

Originally Posted by Gary L

Some people are more interested in changing the network name to something silly like Aston Villa, or their own name so they can remind themselves of who they are at a later date

lol, not only would the network be unsecured but it would also have a rubbish name

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

Are you allowed to drive without instruction? its not a fair comparison

And who gives you the instruction ? Certainly not the person you are buying the car from.

it's completely fair !

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Are you allowed to drive without instruction? its not a fair comparison

And who gives you the instruction ? Certainly not the person you are buying the car from.

To put it another way if you bought a car from a vauxhall dealer you wouldnt expect a volkswagon dealer to fix it for you would you ? Just because they happen to sell things with four wheels and and engine etc.


Or a further way of looking at it.

I know very little about car mechanics however if my car went wrong I might do one of two things

a) Read up on the problem and if I thought I could solve it do it myself

b) Pay someone who knows what they are doing to make sure the car is roadworthy]

VM's responsibility is their network from their gateway to every customers modem. What the customer attaches to it or does with it is their issue (providing of course it's legal)

Pretty fair comparison I think

[Gary L]

Virgin should be educating their customers on securing WiFi more

turned into

if you bought a car from a vauxhall dealer you wouldnt expect a volkswagon dealer to fix it for you would you ? Just because they happen to sell things with four wheels and and engine etc.

VM's responsibility is their network from their gateway to every customers modem. What the customer attaches to it or does with it is their issue

I just thought that it would help if Virgin took more interest in how their customers secured their WiFi so as not to let non customers have a detrimental effect on the virgin network. but from the car comparisns they shouldn't have to.

Originally Posted by Gary L

Some peoples set up can automatically connect to open WiFi that are in range anyway. I'm sure there's plenty of people that connect to open ones without realising it, or even knowing it's illegal...

Yep. This happened to my sister earlier this year. She got her first ever computer (laptop) for Christmas. To get her going on the internet I set up a dial-up connection for her round my house.

The first time she used it at her own house she plugged the modem into the phone line & started I.E. While she was using it, she phoned me on her mobile to tell me how quickly it connected & how fast eveything was loading (windows updates, AVG updates etc.). Out of curiousity, I told her to look at her network connections. Sure enough she had connected to a wireless network.

She insisted that nothing appeared on screen to indicate that she was about to use a wireless connection, or to give her the choice as to what connection to use. It was all automatic.

Luckily the SSID was actually the Christian names of her elderly neighbours who live opposite her. I told her to let them know, as anyone within range could use it. Her neighbours didn't have a clue about how to secure their connection. They said it was set up by their nephew for them. They did say that they didn't mind her using it.

It is still unsecured today!

Mine is unsecured, but then for anyone else to be close enough to use it they'd have to be sitting in the lane outside our front window, in a car with a laptop ...

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Gary L

turned into



I just thought that it would help if Virgin took more interest in how their customers secured their WiFi so as not to let non customers have a detrimental effect on the virgin network. but from the car comparisns they shouldn't have to.

You know precisely the point im making so how about you either do one of the following

a) Argue your case
b) Accept the fact you're wrong.

No need for the at all

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

You know precisely the point im making so how about you either do one of the following

a) Argue your case

I have been arguing my case, people just come back with some story about cars and garages.

b) Accept the fact you're wrong.

I accept the fact that I am wrong that I thought it would be a good idea that Virgin encouraged their customers to keep their routers secure, it wouldn't help take the strain off the network resulting in better speeds for all.

No need for the at all

How about these ones?


---------- Post added at 13:11 ---------- Previous post was at 13:00 ----------

Originally Posted by XFS03

The first time she used it at her own house she plugged the modem into the phone line & started I.E. While she was using it, she phoned me on her mobile to tell me how quickly it connected & how fast eveything was loading (windows updates, AVG updates etc.). Out of curiousity, I told her to look at her network connections. Sure enough she had connected to a wireless network.

That's why I don't think it's as illegal as we might think it is. it might be illegal if you were to use brute force to obtain the connection, but when it's wide open and your PC connects to it automatically. I can't see a prosecution there.

---------- Post added at 13:12 ---------- Previous post was at 13:11 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

Mine is unsecured, but then for anyone else to be close enough to use it they'd have to be sitting in the lane outside our front window, in a car with a laptop ...

Is that a Police safe house? how come you're allowed an internet connection then?

[joglynne]

Probably a very silly question. I can understand in Chris's case where he is isolated enough for it not to matter but why would anyone actually want an unsecured connection in a domestic situation?

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by joglynne

Probably a very silly question. I can understand in Chris's case where he is isolated enough for it not to matter but why would anyone actually want an unsecured connection in a domestic situation?

Could be anything as simple as no problems with it not connecting properly with security. or having numerous WiFi gadgets like myself, where you just let them connect without having to set them all up.

[joglynne]

Originally Posted by Gary L

Could be anything as simple as no problems with it not connecting properly with security. or having numerous WiFi gadgets like myself, where you just let them connect without having to set them all up.

I was just wondering why routers weren't sold with the security built in so that connections would be secure by default with an option to disable or tweak if necessary.

Originally Posted by joglynne

I was just wondering why routers weren't sold with the security built in so that connections would be secure by default with an option to disable or tweak if necessary.

Some older computers can't handle the current recommended WPA security and so have to use WEP, which is suitable for keeping out casual bandwidth thieves but not terribly difficult to get past for anyone who knows what they're doing.

Other people may deliberately wish to make their internet freely available - e.g. a coffee shop that wants to encourage customers to linger, and buy more coffee.

Seeing as routers are sold and installed in all sorts of different environments with different security needs, it would always inconvenience a group of customers for any kind of security to be on by default. And even if it didn't inconvenience anyone, and security was on by default, it would have to be supplied with a default user name and password - which puts you right back to square one.

Despite our isolated location, I did have security in place initially, but we had several friends visiting over a period of months, some of whom brought laptops with them, and we found we had persistent problems getting them connected to the Belkin router with non-Belkin wireless cards in their computers. So we switched it off at that point and haven't bothered to change it since. It's very convenient, anyone who comes and needs to get any work done (or babysitters who turn up with their laptop and wish to spend the evening browsing Cliff Richard fan forums, step forwards mother-in-law), can do so without any hassle at all.

[General Angel]

Originally Posted by Chris

Some older computers can't handle the current recommended WPA security and so have to use WEP, which is suitable for keeping out casual bandwidth thieves but not terribly difficult to get past for anyone who knows what they're doing.

Other people may deliberately wish to make their internet freely available - e.g. a coffee shop that wants to encourage customers to linger, and buy more coffee.

Seeing as routers are sold and installed in all sorts of different environments with different security needs, it would always inconvenience a group of customers for any kind of security to be on by default. And even if it didn't inconvenience anyone, and security was on by default, it would have to be supplied with a default user name and password - which puts you right back to square one.

Despite our isolated location, I did have security in place initially, but we had several friends visiting over a period of months, some of whom brought laptops with them, and we found we had persistent problems getting them connected to the Belkin router with non-Belkin wireless cards in their computers. So we switched it off at that point and haven't bothered to change it since. It's very convenient, anyone who comes and needs to get any work done (or babysitters who turn up with their laptop and wish to spend the evening browsing Cliff Richard fan forums, step forwards mother-in-law), can do so without any hassle at all.

Is it possible to have lower throughput with a secured connection? I heard somewhere that it did, but its not worth the risk IMO