[m a d r a]

by accident, i discovered an open [ie. no passwords needed] wireless network in my neighbourhood yesterday - i suspect it belongs to the college hall block near my house. i connected up by airport and enjoyed a couple of hours of free surfing [pretty cool - since my own broadband connection has been fecked for a couple o months now!].

this morning however when i've tried to connect again, i cannae get online. the weird thing is that i can access the wireless router no problem [hell! - i'm even able to log into it, as whoever set it up hasnae even changed the default password ], so i've had a snoop round the router config and there disnae seem to be anything that would prevent me from accessing the net through it - it's pretty much been left on its default settings [ie. NAT is enabled and there are no allow/ban lists set up]. i've got TCP/IP on my laptop set to use DHCP and i'm getting an IP address assigned by the router. everything seems peachy, but i just cannae get on the web today like i could yesterday. any ideas anyone?

dontcha just hate the "it worked yesterday and it doesn't today - but i havenae changed anything!" problems!

<afterthought>
actually - one thing i did change was applying the OSX 10,4,4 combo update yesterday after downloading it via the self-same wireless network. might that have buggered things up somehow? - they usually mess sommit or other up
</afterthought>

[m a d r a]

ho! ho! - i seem to have solved my problem. i had a nosey round that wireless router again and found a button to restart it remotely. even tho' it's status pages were showing it wasworking fine, i tried resetting it remotely and it worked! woohoo! -i am now back on my wireless freebie again!

i do feel a bit guilty about piggy-backing onto someone else's broadband connection [even if they are a student!] - but anyone who sets up a wireless network with no password protection and doesn't even bother to change the admin password on their router from "admin" is kinda asking for it really, aren't they?

[Scooterboy]

Yes they are, a mhadra. Maybe you could talk the owner into letting you "admin" the base station for a small fee, on top of free wireless. Woof woof!

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by Scooterboy

Yes they are, a mhadra. Maybe you could talk the owner into letting you "admin" the base station for a small fee, on top of free wireless. Woof woof!

hmmm... i think i'll just keep quiet about it and look after his/her interests anonymously by doing my "voluntary" admin work of resetting the router remotely whenever the DSL connection goes down

[ghporter]

madra, do you have a laptop? It would be a Good Thing™ to at least know WHERE the open access point is. This would give you some idea of things like physical range and obstacles between you and the access point. It would also tell you if it was indeed a student's equipment or someone else's.

I used to have a neighbor (who has since moved) who blithely set up his own wireless router by simply plugging it it. No security, default password, completely open. I walked across the street and caught him on his driveway and said "You seem to have just gotten a new wireless router!" "How do you know that?" "I, and everyone else in the world can not only see it online, we can access the Internet AND your printer." He got real quiet for a second and said "What'll I do about that?" I walked him through the quick and dirty "how to secure your network" talk and he fixed it that evening-after turning everything off before heading to work. Moral? I won an ally in the neighborhood by just helping him out for five minutes. That's what good neighbors do, even though it seems to have gone out fo fashion lately.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Scooterboy

a mhadra.

What, another one?

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by ghporter

madra, do you have a laptop? It would be a Good Thing™ to at least know WHERE the open access point is. This would give you some idea of things like physical range and obstacles between you and the access point. It would also tell you if it was indeed a student's equipment or someone else's....

that's the weird thing. i am on a laptop and i've tried manouevering round the house to see if the signal's better or worse in different places, but it's pretty much a constant 1 or 2 bars everywhere. i think it's probably such a weak signal that it's not very focussed direction-wise by the time it gets to me

Originally Posted by ghporter

I used to have a neighbor ... who blithely set up his own wireless router .... No security, default password, completely open .... I walked him through the quick and dirty "how to secure your network" ..... That's what good neighbors do, even though it seems to have gone out fo fashion lately.

all well and good in principle and i probably would if i knew for sure who it was and it was one of my 'regular neighbours' in the block where i live. trouble is, i live in a block of about 10 residential flats. i'm surrounded on three sides by huge blocks of student accommodation with prob at least 30 or 40 student rooms in each and there's another couple of residential blocks about 50m away out the back of similar size to the one i live in. with no way of pinpointing the signal, it could be coming from any one of over a hundred or so folk in my immediate wireless range.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by m a d r a

trouble is, i live in a block of about 10 residential flats. i'm surrounded on three sides by huge blocks of student accommodation with prob at least 30 or 40 student rooms in each and there's another couple of residential blocks about 50m away out the back of similar size to the one i live in. with no way of pinpointing the signal, it could be coming from any one of over a hundred or so folk in my immediate wireless range.

Excellent point. Are these school-provided accomodations, or flats that are generally hired a semester at a time (and in my experience at a huge markup because 'they're just students'...). It the school has some kind of control over them, they probably have a resident advisor and thus some contact with whomever it is that provides the broadband to the students... In other words, they'd want to know if one or more of their students is making their broadband available to the world.

So either the student in question wants to stay out of trouble, or the school is grateful for the oversight. Either way, you might be able to maneuver yourself some sort of kickback--er, stipend to keep an eye on the kids. Or not-this is tricky.

My best advice here is to take advantage while you can. I hate being so cynical, but it's so much easier for both the school and the student to just ignore this huge security breech.

[Scooterboy]

Originally Posted by Oisín

What, another one?

I was only trying to be polite.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Scooterboy

I was only trying to be polite.

I think the point was that you said "a madra," and Oisín was commenting on there perhaps being more than one! I'm pretty sure that one of each of us is more than enough!!!

[m a d r a]

Originally Posted by ghporter

I think the point was that you said "a madra," and Oisín was commenting on there perhaps being more than one! I'm pretty sure that one of each of us is more than enough!!!

actually, scooterboy was using the gaelic vocative particle - ie. "a mhadra" = "madra" [when addressing that person]. sometimes it seems there are gaeilgeoirí coming out of the woodwork round this place!

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by m a d r a

actually, scooterboy was using the gaelic vocative particle - ie. "a mhadra" = "madra" [when addressing that person]. sometimes it seems there are gaeilgeoirí coming out of the woodwork round this place!

Ohhhhhh. As one (or is that two?) of my "ancestral" languages, I suppose I should know at least some Gaelic. But since it's quite different from the Indoeuropean languages I have any knowledge of, I just haven't managed to grasp any of it. Of course your use of "cannae" and "havenae" should have tipped me off to something... but the specifics of Gaelic particles and forms of address are beyond my ken.