Wireless cards and stuff

[Danscowpie]

I work away during the week and rely upon an old Acer Laptop for internet stuff, (which probably in equivilant circumsatnces would have been used by the caveman who invented the wheel).
Her who permits me to lodge as just had the tumerity to upgrade her whole computer system, which includes a new internet provider and a new home hub.
Previously I was able to log on to either her, or a neighbours unprotected system with only minor gliches, now, although I get every indication that I am recieving a full strength signal from her new hub, I can't connect to it.
I can still connect with reasonable quality to the neighbours system but would like to take advantage of what I am paying for in rent.
I've been told that more recent home hubs are now operating on different frequencies to that are on the integral wireless card on my ancient laptop and that a USB Wireless card would solve the problem.

Ive seen such cards available for £18 to £30 and I like advice as to if this is the cost effective solution.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Capetonian]

I would suspect that the new router might have MAC encryption and although you can see the network and connect to, it won't let you use it (if that makes sense), so the adminstrator will have to add your MAC address to the list of devices allowed to access it.

[Saab Dastard]

Wifi comes in several different flavours.

802.11a, b, g and n.

A isn't much used these days. b and g are the most common, and share the 2.4GHz spectrum, channels 1- 13 in the UK. Your built-in wifi card is almost certainly b & g.

802.11n is the new kid on the block, using a different frequency range. If the new hub is 802.11n, you will need a new 802.11n card to connect to it.

To prevent exactly the sort of misuse of the neighbour's wifi that you mention, various mechanisms can be employed:

1) only allow specific MAC addresses to connect to the wifi network (every network card, wired and wireless, has a globally unique address hard-coded). The router needs to be manually configured with the MAC addresses of all wifi network cards that it is to allow.

2) entirely separate from that is encryption of the data transferred between the PC and the hub - WEP is useless, WPA is a lot better, and WPA2 is even better. The PC needs to have the same pre-shared key (PSK) that was used on the wifi hub to be able to decrypt the network traffic.

In summary, you need to ensure that you have the name (SSID) of the wifi network, a compatible physical network card (802.11b, g, n), the same encryption key, and are on the MAC address "white list".

Cadging off your neighbour is bad form (and may also be illegal).

SD

[11Fan]

Cadging off your neighbour is bad form

Good form would include letting them know that they are exposed. Just tell them you happened to notice, along those lines. I can see several of my neighbors WiFi routers. One was unlocked and it was blindingly obvious which one it was because they used their last name. They have since been advised and it has been corrected.

Of course, I know their password because I set it up for them.... I kid, I kid.

[Danscowpie]

Thank you one and all - I've been intending to replace my ancient laptop for a while now, it looks like I am going to have to bite the bullet.

Good form would include letting them know that they are exposed. Just tell them you happened to notice

Concur, and I have done that. They seemed to understand the potential pitfalls, but equally they didn't seem to be particularly bothered.

Thanks again.

[Saab Dastard]

Concur, and I have done that.

Fair enough! :ok:

SD

[Loose rivets]

Have you deleted the old named hubs? Best to tidy up that list.


Download inSSIDer 2.0 Totally brilliant.

If using another card on a computer, you may have to not only turn off the wireless connection that's not being used, but also disable the drivers in Device Manager. This should give inSSIDer free range to start.

It will tell you lots about local live stations, and also the 'privacy' method they are using.

Putting my radio enhanced aerial on the floor doesn't show much increase in the signal from my friend's router, but it does reduce to half, the other signals on my channel. Much more stable.