Std WiFi going 1/3 mile?

Hi All,

I was around a mates the other evening and their nephew came round
with his Dell laptop and suggested he was still connected to his
neighbours WiFi network (not his own strangly) some 1/3 of a mile away
(acording to my GPS mapping software and as the crow flies)?

This was across a pretty std new housing estate .. was it likely? If
not he was probably conneced to (and using) someone elses network! (I
didn't check it out myself at the time ..)?

All the best ..

T i m

"T i m" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi All,
>
> I was around a mates the other evening and their nephew came round
> with his Dell laptop and suggested he was still connected to his
> neighbours WiFi network (not his own strangly) some 1/3 of a mile away
> (acording to my GPS mapping software and as the crow flies)?
>
> This was across a pretty std new housing estate .. was it likely? If
> not he was probably conneced to (and using) someone elses network! (I
> didn't check it out myself at the time ..)?
>
> All the best ..
>
> T i m

Its unlikely, unless he was using high gain aerials at both sides and was
line of sight. I have managed 6km line of sight between two 16db gain beam
antennas, but thats a special installation, not just standard laptop to
standard router (with no external aerial system). As I think you are
suggesting was in use.

So, its very unlikely he would still be connected : - )

Steven Haynes wrote:
> Its unlikely, unless he was using high gain aerials at both sides and was
> line of sight. I have managed 6km line of sight between two 16db gain beam
> antennas, but thats a special installation, not just standard laptop to
> standard router (with no external aerial system). As I think you are
> suggesting was in use.
>
> So, its very unlikely he would still be connected : - )

Had a similar thing the other week. Bought a new iPAQ HX4700 in
England, had it connected to my WiFi network at home. A couple of days
later, went to Germany on business, and when in the hotel turned on the
iPAQ for it to say thats its found my home wireless network.

Was very impressed. Streaming movies was a bit slow though ;o)*

* OK .. thats a lie .. it wasnt really connected ;o)

--
Regards
Andy M Jenkins
http://www.uk-bug.net The UK Broadband Usergroup

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 22:29:02 +0100, "Steven Haynes"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"T i m" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I was around a mates the other evening and their nephew came round
>> with his Dell laptop and suggested he was still connected to his
>> neighbours WiFi network (not his own strangly) some 1/3 of a mile away
>> (acording to my GPS mapping software and as the crow flies)?
>>
>> This was across a pretty std new housing estate .. was it likely? If
>> not he was probably conneced to (and using) someone elses network! (I
>> didn't check it out myself at the time ..)?
>>
>> All the best ..
>>
>> T i m
>
>Its unlikely, unless he was using high gain aerials at both sides and was
>line of sight.

Nope, neither ..

I have managed 6km line of sight between two 16db gain beam
>antennas, but thats a special installation, not just standard laptop to
>standard router (with no external aerial system). As I think you are
>suggesting was in use.

Understood and correct ..
>
>So, its very unlikely he would still be connected : - )
>
Hmm, so I wonder *what / who* he was connected to then .. just another
insecure local network probably.. (I know he was connected to
something as he was on MSN ..) ..

All the best ..

T i m

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:57:51 +0000 (UTC), Andy M Jenkins
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Steven Haynes wrote:
>> Its unlikely, unless he was using high gain aerials at both sides and was
>> line of sight. I have managed 6km line of sight between two 16db gain beam
>> antennas, but thats a special installation, not just standard laptop to
>> standard router (with no external aerial system). As I think you are
>> suggesting was in use.
>>
>> So, its very unlikely he would still be connected : - )
>
>Had a similar thing the other week. Bought a new iPAQ HX4700 in
>England, had it connected to my WiFi network at home. A couple of days
>later, went to Germany on business, and when in the hotel turned on the
>iPAQ for it to say thats its found my home wireless network.

Free drink at the bar Andy ? ;-)
>
>Was very impressed. Streaming movies was a bit slow though ;o)*

I bet ;-)
>
>* OK .. thats a lie .. it wasnt really connected ;o)

No! <g> .. less you had left yer cell card in .. better check yer bill
... ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

"T i m" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 22:29:02 +0100, "Steven Haynes"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>
>>"T i m" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>news:(E-Mail Removed). ..

> Hmm, so I wonder *what / who* he was connected to then .. just another
> insecure local network probably.. (I know he was connected to
> something as he was on MSN ..) ..
>
> All the best ..
>
> T i m

The only way you`ll know that is for him to do it again and do more tests to
ascertain the network he is on.
Or at least to confirm hes not on the one he thinks he is.

I've no idea why people leave their networks wide open. I use several ways
to keep out unauthorised users.
On the router: MAC filtering, WPA-PSK with a long pre-shared
'anti-dictionary attack' key.
On the network, MAC filtering and matching account username/password/unique
IP address to gain access via a proxy.

No one is coming in here easily. I also use a program that alerts me by SMS
if an unauthorised user tries to connect to the wireless part of the
network, so I am pre-warned that someone may be trying to get in.

S

"Steven Haynes" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> I've no idea why people leave their networks wide open. I use several
> ways to keep out unauthorised users.
> On the router: MAC filtering, WPA-PSK with a long pre-shared
> 'anti-dictionary attack' key.
> On the network, MAC filtering and matching account
> username/password/unique IP address to gain access via a proxy.
>
> No one is coming in here easily. I also use a program that alerts me by
> SMS if an unauthorised user tries to connect to the wireless part of the
> network, so I am pre-warned that someone may be trying to get in.

Maybe the reason why people leave them unsecure is because they do not
understand it all. I just spent the best part of 2 days trying to secure my
new wireless network. D-Link support were useless, they told me it was a
driver problem and insisted I reinstalled everything and downloaded new
firmware. I downloaded new firmware and support never told me it was not
supposed to be done wirelessly and I ended up nearly frying my new router.
So I called d-link support again and got through to someone who actually
knew what they were talking about. Explained that it could not be done
wirelessly and had to be wired. We went through resetting the router to
factory default etc and getting it actually to work again.
I tried again to setup the WEP password and it failed after everything was
updated. I recalled how the firmware upgrade had to be done wired, not
wireless so figured it would be worth setting up the password in wired mode
then trying to setup wireless and that finally worked.
I made 3 initial calls to support trying to get the password to work and at
no stage did any of them tell me it had to be done in wired mode, nor does
it say anywhere in the router. They just assume people know how to do these
things.
There lies the problem, these things are far too technical to understand to
the average person. When I first tried to setup the password it says
"please enter a 10 digit hexidecimal key".... WTF does that mean to the
average computer user?
If they made the wireless setups much more user friendly then there would be
more people in a position to make their networks secure.

Like others have said, it's highly unlikely that you're actually
connected to the network.

Chances are, your nephew's wireless NIC is/was configured to use ad-hoc
mode. Because there's no access point, there's no way of measuring the
signal quality, until another computer connects to the ad-hoc network.

Not a very well worded explaination, but I hope it makes sense.

On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:06:11 +0100, Anton Gÿsen
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Like others have said, it's highly unlikely that you're actually
>connected to the network.

To be fair I didn't check (I did show an element of surprise when he
said he could connect but I sorta shrugged it off) ...
>
>Chances are, your nephew's wireless NIC is/was configured to use ad-hoc
>mode.

He *normally* connects to his own WiFi router at home ... by WiFi ..

Because there's no access point, there's no way of measuring the
>signal quality, until another computer connects to the ad-hoc network.

But I did hear the MSN chat noises going on?
>
>Not a very well worded explaination, but I hope it makes sense.

It does <g> but I don't think explains what was (probably) going on in
this case? I *think* he believed he was connecting to his neighbours
(very open) WiFi router whereas he was probably (from the other
replies I have had so far) connected to another much more local (and
also 'open') WiFi network?

I might pop back someday soon and I'll try to take a closer look ..
maybe with Netstumbler on *my* laptop ;-)

All the best .. ;-)

T i m

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, T i m
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:06:11 +0100, Anton Gÿsen
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Like others have said, it's highly unlikely that you're actually
>>connected to the network.
>
>To be fair I didn't check (I did show an element of surprise when he
>said he could connect but I sorta shrugged it off) ...
>>
>>Chances are, your nephew's wireless NIC is/was configured to use ad-hoc
>>mode.
>
>He *normally* connects to his own WiFi router at home ... by WiFi ..
>
>Because there's no access point, there's no way of measuring the
>>signal quality, until another computer connects to the ad-hoc network.
>
>But I did hear the MSN chat noises going on?
>>
>>Not a very well worded explaination, but I hope it makes sense.
>
>It does <g> but I don't think explains what was (probably) going on in
>this case? I *think* he believed he was connecting to his neighbours
>(very open) WiFi router whereas he was probably (from the other
>replies I have had so far) connected to another much more local (and
>also 'open') WiFi network?
>
>I might pop back someday soon and I'll try to take a closer look ..
>maybe with Netstumbler on *my* laptop ;-)
>
>All the best .. ;-)
>
>T i m
>
A friend of mine drove through town with his laptop, and found 17 open
networks.

Most people haven't a clue.
--
Ian.