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Cutting Through a Wi-Fi Traffic Jam?
eric3xxx asks: "A week or so after Christmas, I tried to connect to my home wireless network and while I could see my access point I could not connect. After scanning the network, it turned out that there were at least twenty new access points in my apartment building (and in the surrounding buildings). Most of them had names such as 'linksys' and were all set on their respective vendors default channel (apparently a lot of people received 802.11b/g WAPs as presents). I tried changing the channel on my access point, starting at 1 and continuing through all of the channels, and none of them worked (probably since the channels overlap). In any case, I have no clear solution to this problem. I suppose I could boost the signal, however, that also increases noise. Perhaps I could convince my neighbors to put together a shared wireless network. I may just switch to 802.11a since it isn't as widely used." Has anyone else had success in configuring their APs to work in an areas of heavy wireless traffic?
The answer is staring you in the face. You simply find one of your neighbor's Linksys routers that's wide open, and save yourself $40/month on your Comcast bill. Duh!
John
I find that my neighbors are shouting near me when I want my child to shout the news to me . I cannot hear my child over the neighbor children and I have already tried having my child scream at very high and very low pitches (along with everything between).
Should I convince my neighbors to hire a single child to shout the street news for all of us?
Should I make my house soundproof?
Should I train my child to shout louder or in a different language?
Should I move?
This isn't a technical problem at all!
1 Watt amp. End of Story.
It's called cat5. Look it up.
My ethernet cable laughs at your meaningless WiFi interferance!!! muhahahaha!
If the routers are using the default SSID of linksys, and they're also on the default channel, chances are WEP isn't enabled.
Just connect to one of these networks, open up your browser to 192.168.1.1 (password should be 'admin'), select the tab called 'Wireless,' and uncheck 'Enable Wireless Connections.'
Rinse and repeat.
I was thinking of something more evil. (eviler?) Just login, turn off their wireless all together, and change the default password. No more noise. Truthfully, I would just go with hacked firmware that allows the use of other channels.
1) Get an old microwave 2.4ghz microwave
2) Break off all the shielding*
3) Put aluminum foil 'reflectos' out the front of it and aim at the walls where nothing is in the way*
4) Unground the unit*
5) Put it on a timer to turn on when you are away from home.*
Eventually you'll either burn the place down or put out so much interferance your neighbors will take their WAPs back.
*please note doing this is idiotic and you'd be a real moron to do it....
You went about this wrong. You need to reconfigure all of THEIR APs to be on the same channel and clear on up for you. Or set yours on illegal channels.
I do security
Yeah they'll come knocking and put you in a worldful of .... . .-. - --..
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
A Faraday cave?
This assumes your neighbors actually use the connection. (If they do not, should not most APs stay quite silent?)
Anyway....
1. Run airpwn
2. Watch your scared neighbors turn off APs in horror.
3. Wifi!!!
badness 10000
You forgot
4) Having to administer all that crap.
Help prevent the slashdot effect; stop reading the articles.
Do you often microwave stuff with your head inserted into the microwave or was this revelation the result of a one-time experiment?
E M P :)
$0.02 (CDN)
Note, this is technically illegal in the US. You're broadcasting outside the legal FCC range. Channels 12-14 are generally used for european users.
Ok, so log into all of the OTHER routers, move them to channel 14, and then call the FCC. Problem solved.