Someone is using my internet! i have there mac and ip addy

[peterb]

You could aso disable DHCP on te router and assign all the computers on the wireless network a static IP address. Then even if the WEP key is broken (and that allows your network ttraffic to be read,) they won't get an IP address and won't be able to connect.

And although your wirless traffic can be read, remember that a lot f sensitive web traffic will be encrypted anyway - bank connections and shopping sites will be (or should be) ptotected by SSL. E mail is sent in clear text though, and possibly your e mail logon details, although that will depend on your E mail service provider.

Your router may log wireless connections - depending on your router's capabilities.

Some routers also allow wireless routers to VPN into the network, which can also employ encryption outside the WEP/WPA link encryption.

[circuitmonkey]

actually even without dhcp you can set a static IP and some wifi routers *cough* Belkin *cough* will allow duplicate ips which can be disastrous. windows will actually normally warn you when this happens though.

as for screwing with the wifi thief, it's a bit technically hard to do, but have a read of this:
http://www.evilscheme.org/defcon/
WARNING! Don't get curious and view the image that they suggest to use, really not pleasant!

If you just want to monitor what's going on, and have a bit of fun, look for a live linux distribution called Backtrack. theres many tutorials, along with tools to "test" the security of "your own" network

[razer121]

ha low and behold the first of my WPA problems have already started....my laptop was running fine connected to the network and then i shut it down well in fact i put it to sleep, 2 hours later boot it and i cannot connect? why i dont know but all im told is,

"wireless association failed because windows did not receive any response from the wireless router oor access point"

ah typicall the goodness of WPA, see i bet if i put WEP back on it will work fine, the funny thing is the laptop is not old, its a hp pavillian dv6 with windows vista 32bit,

so now tell me WPA is better......see this is why i use WEP i did nothing and it decides to go tits up, wtf man wtf lol, any ideas guys?

[Terbinator]

Get a new wireless card / USB wireless device that support WPA.

[peterb]

Get a new wireless card / USB wireless device that support WPA.

His HP does support it - he connected - until he went into sleep mode.

Without being there, it is difficult to diagnose, yet alone suggest a solution.

Going back to the basic problem - where do you live? While WEP is said to be trivially easy to crack, it does need someone to know what they are doing, so if you live in a quiet resifdential area, the risk is much lower than (say) living in a university hall with 500 computer science students.

You do need a long key with WEP, but it is better than nothing, and with other security measures (MAC filtering, static IPs it will provide some protection.

As to WPA - it sounds like either a configuration or driver problem. OIf you reboot, does it connect again? Are there newer drivers available for the laptop's wireless system.

If the answer to the first is yes, and the answer to the second is no, you have three options:

Accept the inconvenience of living with shutting down and re-booting - but keeping better security
Accept an increased security risk for the sake of convenience
or (as terbinator said) buy an add on USB device that will work as you expect. And buy it from a shop, specifying exactly what you expect it to do, so that if it doesn't you can return it and try something else. (If you do buy online, again specify exactly what it is you expect it to do - so if it doesn't you can reject it as unfit for purpose)

[GoNz0]

the way i see it is as follows.

1, his phones set to pick up any other network should his preferred not be there, it saw yours, tried to connect that would show him on the network but he didnt know the key so went on his merry way.

2, he was looking for a network to connect to and tried to guess your password and never connected.

some routers show people as being connected even if they didnt get the password, i have had the same on mine.

nothing sinister, no one hijacking the network

[peterb]

Gonzo has a good point - I can see the MAc address of a computer connectiong (without the key) on the admin pages of the router (and it shows it as trying to connect without a valid key) - although I'm not sure if it hands out an IP address under those circumstances. (However - depending on the logging capabilities of your router - the router logs may show the traffic flow through the router)

[oolon]

Gonzo has a good point - I can see the MAc address of a computer connectiong (without the key)

Infact anyone can get onto your wi-fi segment (and see MAC addresses) as they encryption occurs at layer 3 (network layer) rather than layer 2 the data link layer where the mac address is used. This makes sense when you think about it, as it is very difficult to setup an encrypted channel to multiple destinations if you do not know what to call them!

[watercooled]

Just adding my 2p;
Check your router isn't set to accept unencrypted connections as well as WEP - try connecting without a key and check in your router's admin interface.
It's unlikely they've cracked WEP with a phone, they could've used a computer to crack it beforehand and just saved it though.
It's not just easier to break WEP than WPA(2), it's completely useless (~30 seconds to break) against anyone who knows about it and/or has the right software so use WPA, preferably WPA2-CCMP(AES) as WPA-TKIP is broken but still offers reasonable protection against attack.
If they did manage to break WEP then I don't see much point in restricting MAC addresses as they'd probably know how to spoof MAC addresses too and it's just more work for you to keep adding them.
As mentioned above their MAC address may still show up even if they didn't connect so there's probably nothing bad intended - you could see if there's any statistics available on your router and if that address has only received a few packets then it's probably nothing but either way it would still be a good idea to set up proper security on your network.

[razer121]

thanks for the replys, however the phone that was connected to my network was classed as "active" so im pretty sure they had broken the key. even rebooting the laptop didnt work, although what is odd that now it does work! i find WPA pretty crappy but ive had pretty bad experience with it lol. i would still want to know what may have caused it...and how long before it does it again

[watercooled]

What makes you think it's crappy? Because it doesn't work sometimes on one of your wireless adapters after entering standby? That's the card/driver's fault not the protocol...

[nibbler]

actually even without dhcp you can set a static IP and some wifi routers *cough* Belkin *cough* will allow duplicate ips which can be disastrous. windows will actually normally warn you when this happens though.

as for screwing with the wifi thief, it's a bit technically hard to do, but have a read of this:
http://www.evilscheme.org/defcon/
WARNING! Don't get curious and view the image that they suggest to use, really not pleasant!

If you just want to monitor what's going on, and have a bit of fun, look for a live linux distribution called Backtrack. theres many tutorials, along with tools to "test" the security of "your own" network

Completely off topic, sorry, I just realised that my nokia has an app for interpreting your barcode circuitmonkey

[circuitmonkey]

Completely off topic, sorry, I just realised that my nokia has an app for interpreting your barcode circuitmonkey

Ah, so have you figured out what we have in common then...?

[Antagram]

Have you checked what make and model wireless card is in your dv6? If it's an Intel, the wireless manager you can download direct from Intel is pretty good. Might fix connection issue when coming out of hibernation compared to HP implementation.

Also want make and model router is it? As there might be a firmware update that introduces WPA2.

[nibbler]

Ah, so have you figured out what we have in common then...?

Nationality? I'm only half dutch

[razer121]

What makes you think it's crappy? Because it doesn't work sometimes on one of your wireless adapters after entering standby? That's the card/driver's fault not the protocol...

it ent just the laptop mate.

this seems to be a common problem i have with WPA, laptop has been fine since however my mothers played up (god help me lol) im not sure what is going on, my router is up to date on its firmware...but i couldnt see wpa2 on it,