What exactly happens without wireless security?

**Chuckiechan** · August 15th, 2004, 11:14 AM

My son lives in an apartment and he has a Linksys router for his DSL to his pc, to his laptop.

If his signal is "picked up" is he merely sharing bandwith (like at Starbucks), or his his screen showing up on someone else's desktop?

He's not picking up anything when his pc router is disconnected, so I guess that means there are no other wireless routers in range on the same frequency?

I'm curious as to what is really happening out there...

Thanks in advance.

**Chuckiechan** · August 15th, 2004, 12:20 PM

I think this topic will be more adequately covered here:

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t76209.html

**GroundZero3** · August 15th, 2004, 02:15 PM

if he puts on just mac filtering only the mac addresses he puts on to the filter list will be allowed on.

if no wep is enabled they can collect the packets and see basically what you are doing.

**Bizkitkid2001** · August 15th, 2004, 02:19 PM

If someone is able to get into your network, and you have shared folders, they will be able to see everything thats in the shared folders.

**GroundZero3** · August 15th, 2004, 02:21 PM

and thats why you should have so people on your network should have to enter passwords to access other computers.

dont ever use that winxp crap that is already shared out

**Bradte20** · November 9th, 2005, 11:40 PM

Here's a topic that I haven't seen addressed yet and just wondered what you guys thought. I have an SBC DSL modem and router built into one. Supposed someone uses my wireless signal for illegal downloads, does that by any chance show up on any of the PCs connected to the router via ethernet cables? I've checked my web cache and history just to see if my lap top history goes straight to the internet or goes to other computers on the network. I'm guessing unless I access shared files or printers, any laptop or other pc is only communicating with the internet connection?