Neighbor on my ATT DSL network...bah humbug..Fixed now!

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richg99

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Houston, TX & Crossville, TN
I've had intermittent speed issues on my ATT DSL network for some time. Lots of fixes and a number of them seemed to help. Today, same old nonsense...kick outs; slow speeds; DSL dropped etc.

This morning I was able to open my ATT 2wire DSL network and look at which computers were connected. I found a neighbor's kid (mostly games on the listing) apparently was on and using my DSL signal.

The "tech" guy on another fishing network had suggested I change from WEP security to WPA. I called ATT and they walked me through the changes. Easy to do.

Neighbor gone. Signal strength went from 52% to 75% instantly on my TIVO meter. WOW.

Thanks ATT help!!!!

regards, Rich
 
I don't want this reply to come across inflammatory by any means, but I just wanted to clarify something in case others are reading this with similar issues. I'm not sure if you used the correct wording for your problem, but "signal strength" usually refers to the amount of wireless beams hitting your laptop/Tivo/etc. It wouldn't have anything to do with who is on your network or what they are doing. It depends more on the direction of your wireless router's antenna, how thick your walls are, how many open doorways, etc. You can increase this by directing your router antenna towards your Tivo or by using a range extender (or N-router if you don't already have one.) Changing it over to the more modern WPA2 encryption is a lot harder to hack and it seems to help with a lot of MAC issues like Ipods and Ipads since they tend to default to it.

Does your Tivo allow you to run a diagnostics on it? Mine lets me pull up signal strength as well as a connection test which tells me my upload and download speeds.


Kicking the kid off probably ruined his day. Wouldn't you like to have seen the look on his face when he had to go play outside or something instead of playing on your internet for free?
:)
 
Glad its fixed, hopefully you don't get a bill in the mail stating you owe the record company money because of all the illegal downloading coming from your IP.

[-o<
 
............which is why many companies do not use wireless routers. Anything you throw up in the air is up for grabs. When my son was living at home, I took the time to wire the condo off of the router.

My GF was able to access her neighbor's wireless router (not intentionally) many times. My GF was a supervisor in a school district's networking and programming department and they never used a wireless setup. Her son is a programmer too and only uses wireless for social activities.

When wireless phones were first introduced, I used to go on trouble calls of people complaining of cross talk on their phone lines. I even had a case where someone's phone calls were heard on a neighbor's television!

Technology is increasing at a very fast pace and the "bad guys" are sometimes even more proficient at it!

Be careful out there.
 
More on what Jim says, make sure your wireless internet connections are secure. Come July ISP's are going to become more proactive on illegal downloading. Simply put if the files were downloaded on your network its your responsibility, PAY DA MAN..................
 
I know, my router, I can put a password, which I do have one on it. That way anyone tries to connect to my router they have to have the wi-fi password. If I was you, I'd confront the neighbor about it, not like they're the bad guy but like let them know that you dropped them from your router or what not.
 
BassAddict said:
More on what Jim says, make sure your wireless internet connections are secure. Come July ISP's are going to become more proactive on illegal downloading. Simply put if the files were downloaded on your network its your responsibility, PAY DA MAN..................
Just so there's no confusion about this....
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388261,00.asp
 
BassAddict said:
More on what Jim says, make sure your wireless internet connections are secure. Come July ISP's are going to become more proactive on illegal downloading. Simply put if the files were downloaded on your network its your responsibility, PAY DA MAN..................



REALLY - you of all people


I am still paying for all the stuff you downloaded during your last visit - YIPES!
 
Captain Ahab said:
BassAddict said:
More on what Jim says, make sure your wireless internet connections are secure. Come July ISP's are going to become more proactive on illegal downloading. Simply put if the files were downloaded on your network its your responsibility, PAY DA MAN..................



REALLY - you of all people


I am still paying for all the stuff you downloaded during your last visit - YIPES!

I not know these files you speak of :?
 
Good news and .....?

Further investigation shows that the neighbor did NOT have access to my computer. My bad...Glad I didn't confront anyone.

What did happen though....since I THOUGHT he was getting into my system..was that I now have a stronger protection system and a much faster uploading and downloading. Seems WPA lets more info through than WEP??? Anyhow, that is what I read someplace. Sure seems faster to me and my TIVO says so, too.

I was tricked by seeing a ton of games on the STRANGE connection. Turns out that the STRANGE connection was my HP printer E-print system which allows wireless printing. For some weird reason, they list tons of games as being able to use the connection. I have NO IDEA why a printer system would list a ton of games???? Maybe they print out strategy or something. Never played any of those games so I wouldn't know.

Anyhow, No neighbor troubles; faster computer; and a stronger system. Can't be all bad. I wanted to post this correction so no one else would think they had a neighbor issue when they did not.
regards, Rich
 
Glad you got it solved.

BTW, for you other folks, there are plenty of ways to hack the passwords - heck, I have a pda that will hack most wep passwords in an hour - which is handy :twisted: WPA takes a lot longer, but is still possible - I hacked mine for the fun of it.
 
richg99 said:
........... I was tricked by seeing a ton of games on the STRANGE connection. Turns out that the STRANGE connection was my HP printer E-print system which allows wireless printing. For some weird reason, they list tons of games as being able to use the connection. I have NO IDEA why a printer system would list a ton of games???? Maybe they print out strategy or something. Never played any of those games so I wouldn't know.
regards, Rich
Are you certain that what you saw were games ?? Reason I ask is that the HP E-print system offers a bunch of apps for different things and that might be what you were seeing.
Check this out at https://h30495.www3.hp.com/apps.
 
Oh yes, they were games. Looked to me that the HP print system allows you to "allow" certain games to send something to your printer. You choose from this long list of games and the program sets up that particular game with "permission" to print.

Obviously, I was fooled because I had no prior experience with games nor the very convoluted HP E-Print system. The way I discovered that I had blamed the neighbor incorrectly was, when I went to scan something later in the afternoon, the system wasn't connected to my printer/scanner.

Numerous attempts to use the HP Help system to simply change to the new password were in vain.

I had changed to my new password on my two TIVO's in just seconds earlier in the day! Simple, straightforward instructions and a couple of clicks and I was done. Not so for HP!!!

Posting my question on the HP "HELP" site (how do you change the password on the internet-connected HP printer model #$%$ ) went unanswered.

I finally resorted to a Google search of the same question. Getting OUT of the HP " HELP " morass was the answer. Google then led me directly to a brand new program that HP had put out on April 25, one day before my issues. That HP program walked me through re-connecting my printer in minutes.

I had previously read that HP introduced their EPrint system, then failed to support it properly.
Until I found the "Vonder Program" via Google, I agreeded with that assessment.

All's well now. Computer seems to be running faster.
I am happy. regards, Rich
 
Passwords strength depends on what your password is. If it is just a word, it can be hacked in about 1 second.
Most secure is a phrase with letters replaced by CApitals letters, characters, and numbers. 8 digits long and it can take about 1 million years to hack.

eX@mpl31

https://howsecureismypassword.net/

Give my sample a try, 57 days to hack.

DO NOT USE YOUR CURRENT PASSWORD!!!!
You never know how secure a website is.
One other word of caution. Never use the same password for your email account, facebook account and your financial accounts. Teh first thing a hacker will do is try your email/facebook account password. The second thing the will do is try "I forgot my password". This option gives them unlimited trys, and if they have your email account password, they can request a new temporary password.
 

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