# Is Someone Using my Wireless Network?



## aisrep (Jul 19, 2005)

Hi,
How do I find out if someone is using my wireless network? What I mean by that is basically is anyone stealing my bandwidth from my wireless network?
Please reply in a noob-friendly manner because I am a computer novice...
Thanks


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## aisrep (Jul 19, 2005)

please reply!


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

Do you have any security configured on the router?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Without any information about your network, it's pretty difficult to say. Why don't you start with the make/model of wireless router you have. Did you set it up? Did you enable encryption on the link?


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## aisrep (Jul 19, 2005)

my router is a dlink and i have 128bit encryption (WEP)
to keep wardrivers out should i just change the password frequently?
also how do i know who is using my network!
and yes i set the network up, and am having no problems


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## bearqst (May 21, 2004)

Take a look at http://www.insecure.org/nmap/


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

With 128-bit WEP I think you have very little to worry about from wardrivers; they'll just go down the block and find an unsecured network.

Unless somebody can sit in their own apartment/house/office and spend private time trying to break your encryption, you should be fine.

With my (Belkin) router, I can look at its DHCP client list to see what equipment (PCs, printers, etc.) has received an IP. Maybe your router has a similar feature that would allow you to see if anything not expected is connected.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

There are techniques now published to break WEP in a couple of minutes. OTOH, I agree with TerryNet, most wardrivers don't bother. If you change the key regularly, I think you'll be fine.


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## aburkhart (Jul 31, 2006)

You should be able to go into the Router setting and view the MAC address online. If you know for sure that only one computer is connected, and you only see one MAC address then you are all set. But if you see several differnet MAC address, then I could turn on MAC filtering to ensures that the computers never get on your wireless again


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## John Burns (Jul 29, 1999)

I have secured my home network. But I am overly cautious, I guess, so I also use a free program named WallWatcher, which shows the the address of any pc using my router. So far, I have not noted anyone using it who should not be, but I feel more secure seeing it on screen. It also keeps logs for me by date. May or may not be what you are looking for - btw, d-link is included in their list. - Here's the link:

http://wallwatcher.com/


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