How to safely share ADSL with neighbour?

My neighbour has a house abroad and goes there for a month or two every
few months.

It doesn't pay him to have ADSL because of being away a lot.

I could let him share my ADSL, if I bought a wireless router, or even
ran an ethernet cable to his house.

How safe would I be?
What precautions would I need to take?
Would I be responsible if he did anything dubious?
Any other considerations?
--
Chris


Chris

On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 09:14:36 +0000, Chris <nospam@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

>My neighbour has a house abroad and goes there for a month or two every
>few months.
>
>It doesn't pay him to have ADSL because of being away a lot.
>
>I could let him share my ADSL, if I bought a wireless router, or even
>ran an ethernet cable to his house.
>
>How safe would I be?
>What precautions would I need to take?
>Would I be responsible if he did anything dubious?
>Any other considerations?

My neighbour and I do exactly the same thing, with the router placed
near the window and a simple cable going out and into his place.
Works fine.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Chris <nospam@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

> My neighbour has a house abroad and goes there for a month or two
> every few months.
>
> It doesn't pay him to have ADSL because of being away a lot.
>
> I could let him share my ADSL, if I bought a wireless router, or even
> ran an ethernet cable to his house.
>
> How safe would I be?
> What precautions would I need to take?
> Would I be responsible if he did anything dubious?
> Any other considerations?

Sounds like a good deal from your *neighbour's* point of view - but what's
in it for *you*?

You will almost certainly be violating the terms of your contract with your
ISP by re-selling part of the service - and will be cut off in the unlikely
event that it finds out.

You will certainly be responsible for anything dubious which your neighbour
does while using *your* account. If you buy bandwidth on a PAYG basis, it
could actually cost you money if your neighbour's use takes you into a
higher band.

Wireless may or may not work depending on distances and intervening
obstacles. An ethernet cable *would* work - but, in the event of any
problems, you certainly couldn't claim that your neighbour was using it
without your knowledge and consent if you took that route.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Please reply to newsgroup.
Reply address IS valid, but is disposable in the event of excessive
spam.

"Roger Mills \(aka Tiscali Tim\)" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> You will almost certainly be violating the terms of your contract with
> your ISP by re-selling part of the service - and will be cut off in
> the unlikely event that it finds out.

Not necessarily. Student houses do this kind of thing all the time. It
isn't classed as reselling, rather as sharing the costs.

--
Colin
*Drop DEAD from the email address to reply*

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Roger Mills \(aka Tiscali Tim\) <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>You will certainly be responsible for anything dubious which your neighbour
>does while using *your* account.

That depends what sort of "dubious" thing you are thinking of. If he
violates the ISP's terms and conditions, they will be able to
terminate your account. But if he uses it to break the law, say by
buying something with someone else's Amazon account, I don't see why
you would be in any way responsible (any more than if another adult in
your family did the same).

-- Richard

"Chris" <nospam@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:gkRugAf8BqDEFw0I@[127.0.0.1]...
> My neighbour has a house abroad and goes there for a month or two every
> few months.
>
> It doesn't pay him to have ADSL because of being away a lot.
>
> I could let him share my ADSL, if I bought a wireless router, or even
> ran an ethernet cable to his house.
>
> How safe would I be?
> What precautions would I need to take?
> Would I be responsible if he did anything dubious?
> Any other considerations?


If you are considering a share, then presumably you must feel you can trust
him? If you can't trust him then maybe its a bad idea. If you want to keep
logs of all activity that would be quite a setup requirement, which usually
would mean leaving a PC switched on all the time. If he lives directly next
door (joined on) then consider a wired connection first before you think
about wireless (if you don't need wireless yourself that is).

Some routers actually log activity (websites visited etc) but some are more
friendly at doing this than others.

No doubt that you would be the first in line for contact if anything dodgy
went on with your connection. After all it is offically your connection and
not his. With most ISPs you are likely to be breaking the terms and
conditions of your contract by sharing your connection with anyone outside
your own property. But who's to know? You could have three or four
computers on a network yourself for all they know!

I'm not sure in what context you are asking about safety? If you mean,
regardng wireless safety, then try and use WPA PSK and keep the range at a
minimum (you wont need much range to reach next door).

If you use a wired connection, you have no worries at all from a wireless
point of view (obviously).

Regards

"Roger Mills (aka Tiscali Tim)" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)

[snip]

> You will almost certainly be violating the terms of your
> contract with your ISP by re-selling part of the service
> - and will be cut off in the unlikely event that it finds
> out.

Hmm, is it *reselling* if you don't actually charge them..? What if I let
my neighbour into the house and he used my computer..? What is the
difference if it is by mutual consent..? I know someone who has a small
PBX for an internal phone system and runs a cable next door so they can
phone between themselves for free; is this any different from if they were
to use handsets on a common DECT base for example..?

> You will certainly be responsible for anything dubious
> which your neighbour does while using *your* account. If
> you buy bandwidth on a PAYG basis, it could actually cost
> you money if your neighbour's use takes you into a higher
> band.

Indeed.

Ivor

"Eric" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Chris" <nospam@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
> news:gkRugAf8BqDEFw0I@[127.0.0.1]...
> > My neighbour has a house abroad and goes there for a month or two every
> > few months.
> >
> > It doesn't pay him to have ADSL because of being away a lot.
> >
> > I could let him share my ADSL, if I bought a wireless router, or even
> > ran an ethernet cable to his house.
> >
> > How safe would I be?
> > What precautions would I need to take?
> > Would I be responsible if he did anything dubious?

probably - my ISP agreement makes me responsible for any dubious practices
they can trace to my line, including spam, harrassment, viros / worm /
trojan activity and so on.

> > Any other considerations?
>
>
> If you are considering a share, then presumably you must feel you can
trust
> him? If you can't trust him then maybe its a bad idea. If you want to
keep
> logs of all activity that would be quite a setup requirement, which
usually
> would mean leaving a PC switched on all the time. If he lives directly
next
> door (joined on) then consider a wired connection first before you think
> about wireless (if you don't need wireless yourself that is).
>
> Some routers actually log activity (websites visited etc) but some are
more
> friendly at doing this than others.
>
> No doubt that you would be the first in line for contact if anything dodgy
> went on with your connection. After all it is offically your connection
and
> not his. With most ISPs you are likely to be breaking the terms and
> conditions of your contract by sharing your connection with anyone outside
> your own property. But who's to know? You could have three or four
> computers on a network yourself for all they know!
>
> I'm not sure in what context you are asking about safety? If you mean,
> regardng wireless safety, then try and use WPA PSK and keep the range at a
> minimum (you wont need much range to reach next door).
>
> If you use a wired connection, you have no worries at all from a wireless
> point of view (obviously).

just remember that if you plug the 2 houses into the same router then you
are "sharing" a single LAN. So - if you or he share files then the other can
see them.....

if this is an issue then you might consider you each get a local router (one
with an Ethernet WAN port, usually sold for cable connections), then plug
both of them into an ADSL router to drive the WAN connection.

that will provide NAT to isolate each house, but you can still share the
Internet feed for standard use stuff like www, email, usenet. Anything based
on TCP connections initiated from your PC should work with no problems.

However it would make running a server for gaming etc more difficult, might
affect VPN use, and there are a bunch of other applications which require
router tweaks to use. It gets worse if both of you want to use the same app.
>
> Regards
--
Regards

(E-Mail Removed) - replace xyz with ntl

"stephen" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:yfJPf.64918$(E-Mail Removed)...

>
> just remember that if you plug the 2 houses into the same router then you
> are "sharing" a single LAN. So - if you or he share files then the other
can
> see them.....

Not if you use password protection on the folders you share in windows.

The perfect way to cure this issue is not to share folders and files using
windows, but with a separate application that is less common and again
password protect the folders using that software instead. Its not likely
the neighbour would ever know you were running any independant file sharing
software and you could use an uncommon port to do it on. Without the proper
matching client, no-one would be able to log into the file sharing software
and access your files.

>
> if this is an issue then you might consider you each get a local router
(one
> with an Ethernet WAN port, usually sold for cable connections), then plug
> both of them into an ADSL router to drive the WAN connection.

The Netgear DG834G has an option to isolate wireless clients, so that you
can't share files and access resources of another computer on the network.
The only access availble is the internet when this option is set.
>

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Ivor Jones <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
> Hmm, is it *reselling* if you don't actually charge them..? What if I
> let my neighbour into the house and he used my computer..? What is the
> difference if it is by mutual consent..?

Well, no - it's not selling if you don't charge. But that brings me back to
my original question - what's in it for the OP to compensate for the
potential hassle?
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Please reply to newsgroup.
Reply address IS valid, but is disposable in the event of excessive
spam.