Tech help! Bandwidth pirates!

[Cosmicman]

My mother is a near senior citizen and is having an issue. She lives in the small town of Orfordville, Wisconsin and has to use this T-Wireless Mobile thing out of Belvedere to get on the Internet.

She has been "red flagged" several times by the wireless company for "high bandwidth usage." The problem with that, she is in her late 50s and has no idea what that means.

As a tech, I have cleaned out her computers and wiped out all or any programs that could be causing it. I even invited a tech from the T-Wireless company to examine my mother's computer.

You have to understand, my mother is old. When someone calls her up in the middle of the afternoon from the wireless company and says, "you have been red flagged." She has no idea what that means and to an old woman she freaks out and assumes she is being attacked by criminal elements. So, I have to usually run to the situation and calm her down and tell her it is OK and nothing to worry about.

I found the solution though! Every so often, I have been setting my mother a password on her router. When I come over to check up on her the password is usually deleted. (EVERYTIME! I have done this at least six times in the last month.)

I am thinking someone his hacking my mother's wireless and resetting the router and using her router to pirate free Internet, doing whatever causing the massive bandwidth download.

I am a computer tech and I have been baffled by this. How can I stop a wireless thief that can reset my mother's router every time I leave? How do I catch this jerk?

All thoughts welcomed.

[mitchedwards]

Hey, a few suggestions, I bet you have already done some of them.

1-turn of the SSID broadcast on the router.
2-Turn on WEP encryption
3-Restrict access to the router by MAC address.
4-Turn on the router logging.

This will help. I have a friend thats a wardriver, and he has showed me how easy it is to bypass any router security. However, his motto is if he sees a router thats been configured correctly, he will bypass it because. it will take him 10-15 min to break into the router, and during that time he runs the risk of being caught.

As to how to catch them, you would first have to map out how far her router is broadcasting. If she lives in an apt then your in for a challenge figuring it out. If she lives in a house then start watching for cars that park near her house and stay there for a while. You may also want to walk around the front yard and look on the sidewalk or curb to see if you see any chalk markings. War drivers will mark open wireless access with a set of symbols, to help others get free internet.

Also checkout wardriving,.com and wifimaps.com and see if your moms house is listed ontheir maps of free access.

Hope it helps
Mitch

My mother is a near senior citizen and is having an issue. She lives in the small town of Orfordville, Wisconsin and has to use this T-Wireless Mobile thing out of Belvedere to get on the Internet.

She has been "red flagged" several times by the wireless company for "high bandwidth usage." The problem with that, she is in her late 50s and has no idea what that means.

As a tech, I have cleaned out her computers and wiped out all or any programs that could be causing it. I even invited a tech from the T-Wireless company to examine my mother's computer.

You have to understand, my mother is old. When someone calls her up in the middle of the afternoon from the wireless company and says, "you have been red flagged." She has no idea what that means and to an old woman she freaks out and assumes she is being attacked by criminal elements. So, I have to usually run to the situation and calm her down and tell her it is OK and nothing to worry about.

I found the solution though! Every so often, I have been setting my mother a password on her router. When I come over to check up on her the password is usually deleted. (EVERYTIME! I have done this at least six times in the last month.)

I am thinking someone his hacking my mother's wireless and resetting the router and using her router to pirate free Internet, doing whatever causing the massive bandwidth download.

I am a computer tech and I have been baffled by this. How can I stop a wireless thief that can reset my mother's router every time I leave? How do I catch this jerk?

All thoughts welcomed.

[Hulk]

If case her neighbors are hijacking her access, teach her how to turn off the router when not in use. Nothing will frustrate a hijacking neighbor more than access that is not constant.

[Cosmicman]

I think I know who is doing it now. There are some dirtballs across the road with one of those giant CB towers on their roof. I am betting they are using the tower to pull in the wireless signal to their computer. I remember my mom telling me they were using it years ago to listen to all the conversations on the cordless phones before they were made with better protection. My mother found out about it because their kid came up to my parents and asked them if they were selling the puppies. The only people that knew about my parent's dog having puppies was my mother and my uncle that were on the phone with my mom. They were born the night before.
It wouldn't surprise me if these jags were looking for another free ticket and were trying to get a free Internet ride off my mom.

[Cosmicman]

I got pirate boys IP address!

Now it is time track!

Bawhahahha

[Bo8a_Fett]

You could use visual route to send a ping to their ip and you'll get a general idea of where they are.

[Cosmicman]

You could use visual route to send a ping to their ip and you'll get a general idea of where they are.

Oh did that. I am 95% sure of who it is now.

[toys2cool]

Awesome bro,I hope they get in deep crap somehow

[Adam West]

I'm not a techie but I took a short course on setting passwords. I was told to use 7 alphanumerics, make sure one letter was capitalized, one number, and one symbol.

I was told to use something that was meaningful to me to help remember but not to use any common words, birthdates, dog names, etc. Whether or not its true, it would take about 500 years to run through all of the possible combinations to crack the password.

[Cosmicman]

I'm not a techie but I took a short course on setting passwords. I was told to use 7 alphanumerics, make sure one letter was capitalized, one number, and one symbol.

I was told to use something that was meaningful to me to help remember but not to use any common words, birthdates, dog names, etc. Whether or not its true, it would take about 500 years to run through all of the possible combinations to crack the password.

Passwords don't mean crap if you got some smart kid with one of those router cracks that knock the password off and reset it. I was talking to someone offline on here and he was telling me how easy it is for someone to bypass these things. The only way to stop it is to find out who is doing it and walk over to their house and grab them by the throat and tell them to knock it off. Seems like the only way to put an end to it.

[spiderrogue]

i know that this is going to sound stupid, but why is she using a router? is it one of those wireless/modem/router things? i had one from my old service provider(which i hated)..and have gotten rid of it since. my thought is, if she doesnt really need the router, get rid of it and just get a reg. modem, but i dont know if she needs it, does she have high speed cable or dsl? ok..im done....and btw, people can be scum....im not shocked that this sort of thing happens in the world...people can be cheap. lol..

[spaceace35]

I got pirate boys IP address!

Now it is time track!

Bawhahahha

good job
thats the problem with wireless routers