There are a few considerations here. I've thought about this a bit. I
have a neighbor who is running an unencrypted network. I sometimes
log on to see if network problems are because of my ISP or because of
my hardware. Mostly my connection is handier so I use mine. I also
have an unencrypted network. She could log onto mine if her ISP gets
goofy. I don't think she knows that.
But the legalities of exactly who owns bandwidth are undefined. For
instance let's say that I pay an outrageous fee for my connection,
which I do, but I need to go on a little trip and while visiting
relatives I find an unencrypted access point that connects to my
original comcast ISP. Am I stealing bandwidth to use it? I would be
doing the same stuff at home but ...
And what is the situation of my own home use? I have 4 Macs and a
printer all clawing their way to my router. Sometimes, like during
Christmas when my girls are home with their own laptops, I have five.
It's all my own family. I still pay rent for all these kids. Why
shouldn't they be able to use my WAN the way they can use the heat
inside my house? And why should the woman next door, who has one,
maybe two computers and no family be paying the same rate I pay? Is
she getting ripped off? I kind of think so.
I have also gone down the block to a free internet zone sponsored by
the city and connected there. Sometimes I go to the library and they
have open connections. Is it somehow unfair use that my neighbor
can't take her PC downtown and connect with it? She pays the same
taxes I pay.
I find it all a bit fuzzy. I leave my network open and my firewall
up and watch my router lights.
I know someone who borrows her neighbor's wireless connection for
free. He knows about it. She admits it would be better if she got her
own. And the real disadvantage is that the borrower is at a serious
disadvantage because the wireless net owner has no particular
obligation to keep the network up. Sometimes it crashes and the owner
doesn't care because he's out of town. The borrower has no way to fix
it. Tough luck. I wouldn't want that kind of an arrangement even if
it were free.
Your neighbor isn't going to get access to your machine. You could
make her life much more miserable than she could make yours. If you
are getting upset with this person why not open your connection
(unencrypt it), but then close it down during times when you see her
connected. Watch your wireless light on the router. Pretend you have
no idea what's going on but just flip the switch now and then. Or go
into the config screens and disable the wireless network that way so
that you can stay connected over wires. You could really drive up her
stress levels and she would probably go out and buy her own service
just for the comfort of being able to control it.
Oh there are just sooo many annoying things you could do to this
person. Change your SSID to a racial slur. Change it to something
that pokes her politics. Change it to a number, then make it
invisible. You could have her begging for a cable company to charge
her an installation fee.
Good barbwire fences make good neighbors ya'know.
At any rate don't let this person raise your own stress levels one
tiny tick. Not worth it. You da boss. Having that Mac gives you the
big stick.
John
On Jan 12, 2006, at 10:19 PM, Clark Martin wrote:
No, I'm not looking, I found one, by accident. I was trying to
answer a question on Usenet about looking up AppleTalk info today.
As I was playing around with the CLI AppleTalk commands (atlookup,
atstatus and others) I realized I was seeing AppleTalk nodes
besides my laptop and I have no wired connection at the moment. I
pulled up both Interpol and Timbuktu and they both showed AppleTalk
stuff too. And Timbuktu actually worked.
My wireless router is a Motorola WR850G model. It's fairly
current. So if you are looking for something that will do AppleTalk
check it out. I was rather particular when I went looking for this
router, it has quite a few features that are rare, including
support for other routers (IPNetRouter providing a MacIP
connection). It is a good router and today it turns out it's even
better. It's an 802.11g router and connectivity is quite good.
I bought it at a Target store for around $60.
--
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
Macintosh / Internet Consulting
"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"
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