QOTD: Have You Ever Stolen Someone's WiFi?
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who would piggyback on someone else’s Wi-Fi and those who lie about whether or not they would piggy back on someone else’s Wi-Fi.
We’ve all done it, so this is less of a “have you?” and more of an opportunity to tell your stories about it. “Stealing” WiFi (stealing is such a harsh word) is a sticky subject, depending on the person.
The issue of WiFi hopping, or WiFi leeching, or whatever you want to call it, is up in the air right now. However, law makers are taking the issue seriously. In the summer of 2005, a man was arrested for leeching off a neighbor's WiFi. Sitting outside the house in a vehicle, Benjamin Smith III used his neighbor's private WiFi signal.
One of the most important things to do as soon as setting up a wireless access point or router is to secure it, but many people don't.
Jane: I’ve only ever done it when I absolutely had to and I would never use it for anything other than checking email etc. Strictly no downloading. I do have some good stories from others, though. Over a period of a couple of weeks, my brother and his girlfriend noticed that their net conection was getting sluggish. One day the SSID and key changed. They changed the password and SSID again, and switched the router's SSID to just say, "Borrowing - fine, Changing - not" just to be clear. A few days later they got a physical letter to their house from an American lad who had been wardriving their WiFi. He was asking them to change the details back because he couldn’t afford his own internet and their WiFi was the only way he could talk to/contact his family. I sympathized with him, but why change the SSID and key? Stupid move.
Marcus: First of all, people should never leave their WiFi connections unprotected. While I’m all for sharing with neighbors, bandwidth caps imposed by ISPs pretty make make every bit and byte a limited resource. That said, of course I’ve hopped onto someone else’s WiFi – but it was only at a time of need when I didn’t have internet of my own, and it was a godsend. I’ve also never tried to crack anyone’s encrypted connection either. I think of open WiFi as like being those ‘penny-helper’ dishes at cash checkouts. I’d take a few to round up your payment to a more convenient number, but I’d never dump the entire thing over the counter to help pay for a six-pack.
Tuan: During times of desperation, like waiting for my ISP to come by and setup my net connection, yes. Some people leave both their computer unsecured as well as their router unsecured. Plenty of times I've seen people leave the router's default login and password. What's funny is, sometimes I find some residential routers so overloaded with leechers. This is easy to see if someone's left their login credentials open. Routers all have a client list, which you can take a look at to see what's connected. If you don't feel a WiFi password is secure enough, you can also turn on your unit's MAC address filtering feature. This will add an extra layer of security.
The question of the day is: Have you ever stolen someone's WiFi signal?
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Steal is such a harsh word, more like borrowed =)
Yes
Lets just say P2P stuff is done at the neighbors house LOL!
I'm the one that people steal from.
i have never been on anyone's wifi other than mine and starbux of witch i have a wireless plan that it's included so ya no never have
Well I tried to... but they were all protected.
Well I tried to... but they were all protected.
Dont let that slow you down. The answer you seek lies on this very site...
For non protected accounts - a couple of times
How do you think I'm posting this?
I have a moral code though, I never borrow unprotected wifi. A bit backwards, but it gives me a robinhood feeling inside.
I am doing it now. I actually contacted the person who "owns" this UNSECURE wifi system. Offered this person a fee AND offered him a brand new "G" wireless router to replace his old "B" version. He "freaked out"
shut the system off for 4 days. It's back on. He never called me back. So I use it as it is UNSECURED and I use it for routine surfing and nothing else. Being without a job and very limited income it beats going to the library or whatever venue for free wifi. IF you DON't SECURE it, oh well!
I am up high and at any given time I "see" 14 different networks. At any given time at least 3 - 4 are UNSECURE..2 - 3 others are using factory defaults for security.. Some use really colorful network names to insult
you. Broadcasting UNSECURED it is FREE to me.
How do you think I'm posting this?I have a moral code though, I never borrow unprotected wifi. A bit backwards, but it gives me a robinhood feeling inside.
Aww, that's sweet in a mean sort of way.
For the longest time, my friend had dial-up, but his neighbors had Fios. 7 minutes to download a full DVD linux distro from some server at MIT (we live near boston). The best part was that they knew, and they were cool with it.
As for the question: of course! who hasn't?
I let some of my neighbors "borrow" my WiFi from time to time. I take off the protection when no one is using our internet because I know that atleast one of my neighbors will jump at the opportunity and I'm ok with that.
If the WiFi connection is not encrypted, then I consider the owner to be sharing it with the public, and I have made use of such generosities in the past.
If the WiFi connection is encrypted, then I have never tried broken in and use the connection that is meant to be private.
I would argue only the latter definition is "stealing", and I have never stolen in the latter sense.
"unsecured" is synonymous with "public".
When we lived in the townhouse we couldn't connect to our own because so many people were on it so we used someone else's. 30 townhouses in 1 little area and everybody had the same service from the same company so it really didn't matter
Live close to a fair grounds? You'd be shocked how many of them carni's have laptops and will snag up what ever signal they can get. I know, I used to be one. Many how ever will resort to a near by Krystal's or McDonald's, or anything else that might provide free WiFi. Infact there are a number of fair grounds out there now that have WiFi set up for those staying on the grounds.
If it's unsecured, that means it's public. If you want it to be private then secure the goddamn thing with a half decent password. Where ever i go, there's always one or 2 unsecured routers running. So.. don't mind if i do.
Yes... and does anyone know how to break into a linksys nas? lol
No, I've never have, and I keep my connection as secure as I can (WPA and MAC filetring currently), I also check the client list every once in a while just to check if someone is piggybacking off me.
I once saw a connection that shouldn't be there and ban it, it turned out my router lists all clients in one list and not just the wireless ones, so I banned my brother's PC, it took me like an hour to figure out what was happening to his connection.
"There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who would piggyback on someone else’s Wi-Fi and those who lie about whether or not they would piggy back on someone else’s Wi-Fi."
What the hell? I didn't think this was so common.
I don't think I've ever done it.
I have been setting up a WiFi area in my area so that the neighbors can use mine. I live in a poor neighborhood and the kids think I'm a hero. It's just a small project of my on trying to setup a Network. My own Personnel Network is sealed by a Router and is Hardwired. Sure I get a drop in bandwith for a couple of hours but nothing that isn't noticiable.
Uh yeah.all the time.I mean,I paid like 60 bucks for a usb 500mw alfa ,and then a 14 decibel directional antenna,and then I still have it amped with another watt of power.
I can point this puppy out a window,and pick up networks (around 200)for about 5 blocks,in any direction,in a heavily congested city setting.
Who cares if it is protected by wep/wpa...just fire up backtrack 3,in a vm,and run a plethora of tools against it,with 40 gigs of rainbow tables on an external drive....and viola,in a matter of minutes,no more protection.
I caught someone leeching off of my wifi (before I secured it, of course) so I left a notepad file in their shared folder saying basically "get your own wifi". I didn't want to do anything drastic since it was really my fault for not securing it in the first place. I have since secured my wifi. Have I stolen bandwidth? Of course!
Yes I have, I moved into a new house and it took 6 weeks to get my connection installed because it required new lines, so in the interim I "borrowed" a few.
I since found out my neighbor had been "borrowing" another neighbor's connection for that last 9 months, not by choice but simply because his connection (which he was paying for) was not actually working and he had just connected to the next available one because hey he knew no better and his machine suggested it.
Next week's question should be, have you used someone else's wifi when you know very well you should not have?
One time... well, two times... my ISP cut me off... was going through withdrawl...
This post is from my neighbor's wireless across the street. I leech his unsecured connection, along with 4 other "clients". I can even access his HTML interface for his linksys router, seeing all other client's hostnames, as well as IP addresses! (every other setting is password-protected)
If your life is boring, you can have fun and unsecure your wireless access point on purpose, but make the the nosy neighbors pay. According to this article (link below) you can route untrusted traffic through a squid proxy, effectively flipping all images upside down. Great deterrent for even some of the most persistent hacker.
http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html
well, i didnt borrow much... it was just about 400gb of download on it...
Yes I have.
heheheh.
Why? It's unsecure therefore LEGALLY *not* stealing. Same as a cafe with free wifi.
It's also fun to go up to neighbors and tell them to put passwords on it. And they are all like
Is it stealing TV if from your bedroom window you can see your neighbors 80" TV? Short answer, of course! LOL must agree with the_one111
I have. The only time I've done so however is in the 2-3 day gap between when I've moved into an apartment, and when our internet was setup.
Actually, I also did it when our router was on the fritz, but then I used the unprotected wi-fi of my friends across the sidewalk, so I don't consider that stealing in any sense of the word
In fact, for three years me and my roommate shared internet (bill and all) with two friends above us.