How Can I Find Out If Someone's Stealing My Wi-Fi?

Slow speed could be cause by a number of things, but here's what to do about it: 1. Call your ISP's Internet tech support group. Ask them how to check by yourself your line speed and your bandwidth consumption. Here at Bell Canada, both tools are available on Bell Canada's website. Your being pirated WON'T be shown by line speed, but it might reveal a line malfunction (high noise, flaky connection). As for bandwidth consumption: if you see it rising day by day without your accesing much the Internet, that's a sign. 2. Assuming that someone hasn't connected an Ethernet cable to your modem without your noticing, then if you ARE being pirated it's by wireless. If you don't use wireless yourself, turn off your modem/router's wireless capability by going to the MR's configuration webpage (often '192.168.0.1' or something that looks like that) and setting the corresponding parameter. 3. If you DO use wireless for Internet access or local networking, do the following: - turn off SSID (network name) transmission and change your SSID; - set authentification/encryption type to WPA and/or WPA2; - set a robust personal password that's at least eight characters/numbers long (the minimum needed for WPA/WPA2). Turning off SSID transmission will make your network invisible to scanning for available networks. Your modem will still be accessible by wireless, but only if someone who tries to connect to it if he's been told that it's there and what it's SSID (name) is. Give that 'hidden' SSID ONLY to people you trust; and even then ... Setting authentification/encryption to WPA, or its slight variant WPA2, will make it much harder for pirates to steal your Internet line. Most often, the base/default wireless configuration for modems/routers is WEP, an old standard from the 90s that can be easily pirated if one has the right (Net-available) software. WPA/WPA2 is MUCH harder to pirate, software or no software. Normally, I use straight WPA because XP-based computers can work only with WEP and WPA (and not WPA2). Also, setting some modems to 'WPA and WPA2' sometimes leads to communication problems, for some reason or other. I recommendthat you stick to WPA. Concerning wireless passwords: the longer, and the less obvious, the better. Passwords such as 'abc123', your name, your pet's name, your phone number, and your ISP's favorites (e.g., one particular one that Bell Canada'S tech support agents often give out) should NEVER be used. And of course, always keep your wireless-configuration settings handy. Cheers! DZ

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" turn off SSID (network name) transmission and change your SSID; - set authentification/encryption type to WPA and/or WPA2; - set a robust personal password that's at least eight characters/numbers long (the minimum needed for WPA/WPA2). Turning off SSID transmission will make your network invisible to scanning for available networks..."

whut'n the name of holy tarnation does alluh thet thar mean anywho!?