Using Neighbors Wifi
Is neighbor’s Wi-Fi signal free for me to use? – Phys.org
Q. The other day, my Internet service went down as it does from time to time. But this particular time, I needed to check my e-mail for an important reply I was expecting. After some frustrating time passed, I happened to notice that there was a Wi-Fi signal available. I have no idea to whom the service belonged but I suspected it belonged to one of my neighbors. It had a generic name of “NETGEAR” and it was unlocked. I decided to see if it was accessible and it was. I was able to check my e-mail and download the important document that was attached to it. Now my question to you is if I did anything wrong by using my neighbor’s unlocked Wi-Fi signal to get my email and do a little web surfing afterward.
A. If you want the direct and simple answer, it’s illegal to use your neighbor’s Internet service without their consent, period. Your neighbor is paying for the service and if you are using it without their knowledge, it’s stealing.
Now you will find a wide range of arguments and reasons that you could use to try to justify/rationalize your using your neighbor’s service. Here are a couple:
• “The average person will not know you are using their Internet service when you access it via an unlocked Wi-Fi signal. ” That’s pretty much true. The only way they might suspect something is wrong is if you begin doing something that eats into their bandwidth such as downloading a large file or begin streaming audio or video. That will cause their access to become sluggish which they may notice. Then again if your neighbor subscribes to a large amount of bandwidth via a DSL or cable modem, your downloading usage may still go unnoticed. And even if they do notice it, they may just chalk it up to how flaky the Internet can be from time to time and choose not to do anything about it.
• “Your neighbors are just asking for it because they didn’t take the time to protect their Wi-Fi signal by using encryption. ” If you go down that path, the argument continues by saying if they are using the more easily broken 64-bit WEP protection, they deserve to have their signal taken. Using that same logic, then it’s OK to enter into your neighbor’s home if they don’t bother to lock their front door or lock it using an inferior lock? I think not. Just because something is there doesn’t necessarily mean you have a legal right to take it.
There’s something else you need to consider before you decide to use that Wi-Fi connection. It could be a trap. There’s a way to steal information by setting up seemingly open Wi-Fi connections. These Wi-Fi traps are better known as “Honey Pots. ” The unsuspecting person is lured into using the seemingly free, unlocked Wi-Fi service. They access their banking websites, make credit card purchases, etc. With a Honey Pot, every single thing you type is being recorded by those who want to steal from you. Your account information, passwords and anything else you type to gain access has now become compromised. So that free Internet access you thought you were getting actually comes with a very heavy price.
Now chances are the Wi-Fi signal you stumbled upon from your home isn’t a Honey Pot. Those are typically set up in public places such as airports, restaurants and other venues where the thieves have access to literally hundreds of computers every day. Your situation is probably just some neighbor who didn’t know enough to protect their Internet service. Chances are they may never know you’re using their service and your using it probably won’t even cost them anything unless they are using one of those tiered services that charge extra if they go over a certain amount of usage. But whether they notice it or not, or whether it’s locked or unlocked really isn’t the point. The bottom line is that unless you have their permission, you’re taking something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s stealing. Don’t do it.
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If I Share Wi-Fi With My Neighbor, Can They See My Network …
Plus what else might be exposed.
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Sharing Wi-Fi with your neighbor might seem like a friendly thing to do, but be aware you are potentially putting your own computers at risk.
I have a home network with three computers (two desktops connected with ethernet cables to a router; laptop is wireless). The wireless signal is encrypted and I gave my next-door neighbors my network key so they can wirelessly connect just to check email, do banking, etc. They are not on my home network — but can they still see where I am surfing (such as my bank site with passcodes, etc. )?
Let me make one important correction to what you’ve described:
If you give someone access to your Wi-Fi, you have given them access to your network.
They’re on it.
What they can see depends on a number of things. Chances are they can not see your traffic, but even so — to be blunt, I hope you trust them.
Perils of sharing Wi-FiA Wi-Fi connection is a direct connection to your local network. While Wi-Fi encryption is important, it does not protect you from malicious behavior by connected machines. While there’s a tiny chance network traffic could be exposed, of greater concern is that anything shared on your local network would be accessible to anyone connected. Of greatest concern is the possibility that the connected machine could, inadvertently or otherwise, spread malware.
A Wi-Fi connection
It’s important to realize that a wireless connection — regardless of how your hardware is set up — is a connection to your network. It’s the equivalent to running a cable between the connected machine and your router.
A very common scenario looks like this:
That’s a simple setup where multiple computers are connected to the internet via a single device: a wireless router. Some computers are wired, and some are connected via Wi-Fi.
It’s important to realize that this is exactly equivalent to this:
A wireless router just puts the wireless access point in the same box as the router itself, but in either case, it’s nothing more than a connection to your local network.
And of course, machines on your local network should all be able to “see” each other.
Wi-Fi encryption
It’s good that your wireless access point is using encryption, but it’s important to realize what it does and does not do.
It does not protect you from your neighbor.
By giving your neighbor the key, the encryption does not affect your security with them at all. It’s as if they were connected directly to your network — because they are. It’s almost the same thing as having given them a wired connection to your router.
The Wi-Fi password (or encryption key) protects only the connection between the computer and the Wi-Fi access point. The key is required to be able to connect wirelessly. This prevents others — people to whom you have not given the password — from accessing your network, and protects data sent wirelessly from being viewed by others as well.
But that’s it.
What’s the risk?
There are three basic risks:1
If you have computers sharing files or a printer, your neighbor may be able to access those files or print to your printer.
There’s a tiny risk your neighbor may be able to “see” some or all of your network traffic. I call it tiny because routers typically do not route traffic to computers not involved in the conversation.
If your neighbor’s computer becomes infected with malware, that malware may propagate to your machines.
To be honest, it’s the last one that scares me the most.
The first two are all about your neighbor’s intention, which in most cases is probably honest and above board and is at least something you can attempt to judge. The latter, however, involves your neighbor’s ability to keep their own system free of malicious software. That’s a risk I’d be reluctant to take even with the best of intentions.
To address your banking concern: as long as your bank is using, then I don’t see an issue. This encrypts the connection between your computer and the bank, so even if your neighbor was able to see your network traffic, they would not be able to decode your banking conversation. 2
Protecting Yourself
So, short of denying your neighbor access to your network, what can you do?
At a minimum, turn on the Windows or other software firewall on every machine you have on your network. The good news is this is the default behavior in recent versions of Windows.
A more secure approach is to use a second router:
The important characteristic here is that there is a router between your local network and the point at which your neighbor connects.
As I often say, a router acts as a firewall, and as such it has a “trusted” side — your local network — and an “untrusted” side — normally the internet — that it’s protecting you from. This setup draws that trusted/untrusted line between you and your neighbor.
Yet another approach is to get a wireless router specifically designed for this application. In recent years, wireless routers have come to market providing two separate wireless connections, one of which — typically called a ‘guest’ network — is isolated from your local network. While the intent is to provide access to the occasional guest in your home, this connection could also be the one you share with your neighbor.
One Possible Legality
Finally, there’s one more thing I want you to look into before you agree to share your internet connection with anyone.
I want you to check the terms of service with your ISP.
It’s very possible — likely, even — that they explicitly prohibit this type of sharing (you’re taking away a potential customer, after all).
While it’s unlikely that they would detect the connection was being shared with a neighbor, if they did, you could be penalized in some fashion.
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How to share your Wi-Fi with neighbors during the pandemic.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus.
Amid the pandemic, communities all around the world are coming together to help address some of the immediate needs produced by this public health crisis. Mutual aid groups are running errands for the most vulnerable populations and making masks for health workers.
Another crucial way we can help one another is sharing our internet service. The Federal Communications Commission estimates that in the U. S., more than 21 million people, or 6. 5 percent of the population, don’t have access to broadband service (fixed home broadband reaching download speeds of 25 megabits per second and upload speeds of 3 Mbps). Independent studies indicate the FCC has seriously undercounted the problem and put the number of Americans lacking broadband internet service at somewhere between 42 million and 162. 8 million people. Lack of internet access is particularly harmful for already marginalized and vulnerable populations, like those living in rural areas, on tribal lands, in low-income households, and schoolchildren.
If you live in an area where basic broadband infrastructure is lacking, you may not have consistent internet access to share with others. However, in urban and suburban areas where there is widespread broadband infrastructure, opening up your network may help neighboring households that are underserved or can’t afford fixed home internet service. Opening up your personal network may provide schoolchildren—who might otherwise have to rely on mobile internet to connect with their teacher or do their homework—with steady fixed home internet service. One teacher in South Africa asked a neighbor for Wi-Fi to get online and hold math class. Additionally, with some internet service providers halting home visits for installation or maintenance due to the pandemic, a neighbor may also ask if you can share your Wi-Fi network with them until their connection is fixed.
The easiest way to share your Wi-Fi securely is to simply give your neighbors your password. This isn’t the most technically secure approach, but if you know and trust your neighbors, go ahead and slip the password under the door of that neighbor who you know doesn’t have an internet connection.
If that’s not an option, there are a number of ways to securely set up a separate “guest network” for your neighbors to access. This is a little bit more difficult, since every router comes with a different interface, and not all suggestions work for every device. But our instructions should help you figure it out if you can.
To start, consult the instructions that came with your router, or find your model’s page on the internet, to figure out things like finding the administrative interface for your device. You’ll also need the administrative password for the router to make any of these changes. If you have no idea what the password is or was, you can perform a factory reset. This will wipe out all of the configuration on the router, so you will need to go through and set everything up again, so only do this if you really can’t find the password. Generally, that involves some form of holding down a reset button, but every router is a little different, so be sure to double-check with your manual. Once you’ve done the factory reset, you will be able to use a default password to log in to the admin interface. The default password should be in the user manual, and you can often also find it by searching for your router model with the phrase “default password. ” For that reason, don’t forget to change the password afterward, and don’t use a password that you use for anything else—which is good advice for all passwords.
Once you’ve gotten in to your router, you can start setting up network sharing. The easiest way is if the Wi-Fi/wireless section of your router’s settings has a “guest network” option that you can enable. If you can’t set up a guest network on your current router, the next best route is adding another Wi-Fi router to your network. Having a second router means that you can create cleaner points of separation between your home network and the space that you are opening up for neighbors. For example, turning off the guest network temporarily becomes as easy as unplugging it. You can absolutely pull an old router out of a closet for this. But a new one can cost as little as $25–$30. If you are really looking to gear up, you may want to look into outdoor equipment with a longer range, which starts at around $50.
You should then configure the second router to have an open Wi-Fi network and give IP addresses on a different subnet. There are many resources available on networking that explain home subnets in depth, but simply put, a subnet is a set of addresses that a device can communicate with, without any help from a router. So for instance, your laptop might send traffic to your printer without asking the router for directions. By putting guest traffic in a different subnet, guests will not be able to communicate with devices on your network. You will want to connect the port labeled WAN on your newly configured old router to an open Ethernet port on your current router, and you’re on your way to digital mutual aid.
The “how to” is only part of the process here. First, you need to consider the potential harms to your own security and internet connection quality. Sharing your Wi-Fi network can lower your network’s security if you aren’t careful about how you set it up. The potential harm is allowing someone to eavesdrop on what you’re doing by inspecting your internet traffic and/or looking for insecure devices on your network. To be fair, this is similar to the risk of using coffee shop Wi-Fi. That said, if you set up a properly separated network for your neighbors, they will not be able to see your traffic.
Your real problem may not be poor security but the annoyance of a potential slowdown in internet speed once you open up your connection. You only have so much bandwidth coming into your house, which often isn’t much to begin with if you live in the United States. If your entire apartment building tries streaming Netflix off of your Wi-Fi, no one will be happy. There are technical solutions to this problem known as Quality of Service, which you can learn more about here. More simply, you might manage your slower speeds by turning off the open Wi-Fi network when you need more bandwidth for yourself, maybe before settling in for a Golden Girls marathon at night, or a marathon of virtual meetings in the day. You can turn your open network back on when you don’t need to use all the bandwidth yourself. It may take a few days to figure out that balance, but it’ll be worth it. If you have an unlimited broadband plan, which is likely, your bandwidth is like a constantly running stream. Sometimes you need to run your mill, but the rest of the time, that water is just flowing by. So why not let others use it?
If you’re worried about the rules you might be breaking, it’s unlikely that opening up your internet connection to others will get you in trouble. However, you should consult the terms of service for your internet plan. Some internet service providers do specifically forbid it, which might encourage you to reach out and ask if they can update their terms to provide some temporary leniency around this prohibition given just how essential an internet connection is right now and in other public disasters. Other ISPs have instructions on how you might set up an open network using their equipment. As for any risk of liability if someone starts using your Wi-Fi to download copyrighted content, our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have put out some guidance and resources explaining that in general, if you are simply making Wi-Fi available and you act reasonably and responsibly, you should be OK. (But this is not legal advice. Consult a lawyer if you need one. )
If sharing your connection seems too difficult, or you run into trouble during the setup, there are also some larger-scale efforts underway to help people get or remain connected. Some brand-name internet service providers have adapted their usual service policies to improve and expand access. For example, Comcast, Charter, RCN, and Altice have pledged not to disconnect service for customers who cannot pay their bills during this crisis. Comcast, Charter, and Altice have also opened up their Wi-Fi hot spots in businesses and outdoor locations around the country for free, regardless of whether users are subscribed to their service. Mediacom and Cable One have temporarily suspended caps on data usage. Local philanthropic efforts like the DC Education Equity Fund, which looks to purchase tablets, laptops, and Wi-Fi hot spots for students in traditional public and charter schools through private donations, are also popping up to support local communities.
During these times of physical distancing and isolation, it’s more important than ever to get everyone connected. If you do end up sharing your connection with a guest Wi-Fi network, don’t forget the last step: a clever name for your new public network might make your neighbors smile from inside the safety of their own, now-connected homes.
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Frequently Asked Questions about using neighbors wifi
Is it OK to share WIFI with neighbor?
It does not protect you from your neighbor. By giving your neighbor the key, the encryption does not affect your security with them at all. It’s as if they were connected directly to your network — because they are. It’s almost the same thing as having given them a wired connection to your router.Sep 6, 2021
Is it bad to use neighbors WIFI?
Sharing your Wi-Fi network can lower your network’s security if you aren’t careful about how you set it up. The potential harm is allowing someone to eavesdrop on what you’re doing by inspecting your internet traffic and/or looking for insecure devices on your network.Apr 24, 2020
Is it legal to use someone else’s wifi?
Legality of Piggybacking on Someone’s Wi-Fi There is no uniform federal law that explicitly allows or prohibits using a neighbor’s Wi-Fi in the United States, though the criminal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act comes close.
