Girl Geekette dotNet

There are many people like John Hancock in this world. They hear about the benefits of Wireless Networking and decide it is a great opportunity. As mentioned earlier, it can be a break from the "Corded World". It is easy to set up most wireless connections out of the box. Technology has pretty much made them plug and play. Most of the time, you do not have to have much knowledge of what goes into wireless to get it to work. Answer a few questions in the setup about how you normally connect to the internet and you are on.

In the first article, it was mentioned that the Wireless Access point he had bought also had a firewall built into it. So, he did not even blink twice when his Norton Firewall alerted him the the fact that someone else was on the network. This other computer that joined the network might have broadcast a "HELLO" to other computers on the network to see if there were any other computers on the network that answered. This is most likely what set off the alarm on Norton’s Firewall on John’s computer.

By leaving his wireless connection open, John left it wide open for anyone within range to connect to the wireless internet connction. Maybe the next door neighbour or the neighbour across the street accidentally got on the wireless networking thinking it was their own. It could be a number of things. In John’s eyes, this was nothing to worry about. He went right on doing what he was doing becuase he figured he was protected from anything by the "Firewall" of his wireless router. What he did not consider was that it was someone ON his network that might have triggered the alert, not someone from the internet where he is protected.

Should this be a cause of concern? Yes. It should definately be a cause of concern. With John’s wifi connection being unprotected and unsecure, it is allowing anyone to be able to connect to his network. Even if John realizes that, he might not realize why it should be a concern.

Allowing someone to connect to your wireless network can possible cause a number or problems. It has been known for people to connect to other networks by unsecured wireless and send tons of spam to others on the internet. That can result in your internet connection being suspended or cancelled by your ISP. Your ISP might not know that you did not send millions of spam email out to others on the internet. All they know is that someone sent a lot of it from your IP address. Your IP address will be the address that shows in the spam and that number will be tied you to if someone sent if from your connection. The ISP can look at who’s account had what IP address at what time and pinpoint that it came from your connection. Your ISP account could be cancelled with no warning following this. The person who connected to your wirless connection is not the one who will get in trouble, it will be you. You are the one responsible for securing your network so others do not "borrow" it and use it like this to do activities such as "Spamming" which may be against the Terms of Service of your ISP.

Of course, spamming is not the only thing that someone can do from a "borrowed" Internet connection. Numerous other illegal things can be done as well. Whether what the person borrowing the internet connection is doing is legal or illegal, it does not matter. You are the one paying for that ISP connection, and you are responsible for it. If someone else abuses the connection, then you are resonsible for the activities, not them. Not too many people would let just any complete stranger walk in their house and sit down with his or her laptop and borrow his internet connection. Someone sitting outside in a car across the street or in another apartment with a wireless connection who is connecting to your network is doing essentially this.