I am new to using wireless - just purchased a Dell Latitude 2100 netbook a couple of weeks ago. Ubuntu 9.04. It is working fine with my router, ISP, LAN etc. So...

Last night I went next door to help my neighbor clean up a virus on his Win XP box. I connected an SATA to USB adapter to the drive in his machine, connected the USB to the Latitude and scanned his hard drive with Bit Defender. Worked great - a really neat trick. And then...

I had helped him setup his DSL a couple of years back. He has an old D-Link wirless router which we had configured for wired use only to his one PC. Now that I had a wireless device I decided to make sure he was not leaking any signals. So I probed for a connection with the netbook.

Low and behold I latched onto a 100% strength signal. ifconfig showed that I now had an IP address 10.42.43.1. I thought this to be rather strange as 1) 10. subnet addresses are usually used by businesses (none in the area) and 2) there are no other houses closer than mine and I could not detect my signal. 3) wireless is in fact disabled on his router and his IP addresses are in the 192.168.5 subnet.

The signal is just as strong at my house. Although I can establish a connection to this unknown network I cannot access anything. Obviously there is security on it. Still, I wonder who they are and if there is any chance of their signal interfering with mine.

Any thoughts/comments?

Ken

You can use either 192 or 10 for internal networking. The fact that most use 192 at home doesn't preclude anyone from using 10 instead. (In fact one could create a network at home that has any subnet so long as they weren't also trying to access internet addresses.)

Being "flooded" implies your network isn't working but from what you say it is working just fine. I wouldn't worry about it unless you were seeing some interference with your signal. Of course you want to make sure you wireless security is good because there are folks that try to hack into wireless home networks.

My experience (I've lived in apartments and now a condo) is that you're apt to see multiple wireless routers when you check for them and they aren't always low powered. I've never seen any impact from this plethora of devices.

Even where I work we are across 10 lanes of an interstate from a local hotel yet we can see their wireless network here.

Thanks jlightner,

I guess "flooded" was a bit of dramatic liberty. My point being that the signal is better than my signal. I realize that 10. could be used for a home network. However, I would guess that most home users don't change anything from the out-of-the-box settings on their router or access point.

I have WPA2 enabled with a strong passphrase, broadcast SSID turned off and MAC address access control enabled with only the MAC of my netbook in the list. So let them hack away

I suppose that to complete my wireless experience I need to find a public WiFi facility which I can connect to just to say I have. Seems like McDonalds offers free McWiFi - not sure I want to get french fry grease all over my keyboard though

Ken

p.s. Something just dawned on me... A few years back I had high(er than dialup) speed from a local outfit by point to point WiFi - where I had a pizza box size antenna on the roof pointed to the ISP's tower. I had asked these clowns to do a site survey (to see if they could provide me with service) for more than 2 years and they never would - until I had a competitor come out and check with their portable antenna. They told me that their signal was not strong enough but that the signal strength from the first company was great. Now how did they know that the signal was from the other company???

I went with the first company for several months although the owner had a habit of playing with his network - and not knowing what he was doing. Somehow he got the speed throttling on his router broken. I could download at 1.5 Mb/s instead of the 256Kb/s I was contracted for. And when I did it would suck his whole system down. So we parted ways and a few months later I was able to get real high speed DSL - but that is another story.

It may be they were big enough companies that they had to put something out there to say where the signal was coming from (much like TV/Radio/Ham operators have to periodically announce call signs). Most devices have allowed ranges and frequencies and when you start exceeding those or interfering with others the FCC might come knocking.

I remember back in the late 70s where CB use at home became a hobby for many and people were sometimes tracked down for using illegal signal boosters. "Break One Nine" was meant as a courtesy and was not supposed to actually break things. :-D

Would you be referring to a foot warmer?

• whoever it is/was is probably using DHCP to hand out IP addresses.
• I use 10.x.y.z addresses at home, due to a screw-up with my router. I'll rebuild everything and put it right (not that there is anything actually wrong with it) one day
• if you use, eg, kismet, you can probably get more details, if you want

Yes/no. You don't say what band you are using, but within the common a and b/g bands, there are a number of channels and the normal situation is that they use one channel and you use another channel, and there is no problem. There is (deliberately) some frequency spread from one channel into adjacent ones, but this isn't usually a problem if there are few interfering signals of high signal strength. Well, unless there are many competing signals and they are strong (weak ones don't really matter as you'll drown them out). Or, you have fixed matters so that your gear cannot use a quiet-ish channel (maybe what seemed like the quietest channel when you originally configured the system, later becomes a noisy channel).

Thanks salasi,

I am using b/g. Fortunately I am not getting any interference from the unknown source, at least I do not think so. I can transfer date to/from the netbook at about 2 MiB/s which is the best I can expect from a g connection.

Which gets me thinking again... since b and g are supposed to be much shorter range and slower than n band... Why is someone using a super strong b/g signal instead of n?

Ken

n isn't a band; its more like a protocol or a technique (spatial diversity), although there is some variation, in that you are allowed to implement interoperable subsets of the whole thing....and that, in itself, isn't a big problem, except the 'n' device that you by from manuf A may be far less capable than the 'n' device from manuf B (or, the same thing would apply if it is from lower down the range from manuf B), and there really isn't a clear way for the ordinary punter to tell the difference...you might look for enhanced range or enhanced throughput on the box, but the ordinary punter won't know the difference between meaningful, but manufacturer-specific, things with a technical import, and advertising 'creativity'.

The 2.4 G b/g frequency range is widely used; bluetooth, and microwave ovens and diathermy equipment, whatever that is, and anyone else who wants to, at low power levels).

Which is longer range is an interesting question; 5G is more 'line of sight' - more directional, more attenuated by seemingly innocuous objects, but, because there are fewer miscellaneous users of the 5G frequency area, it may well be a lot quieter, in individual circumstances, and that may well compensate. OTOH, b/g can be noisy with other users, but, locally, if you can find quiet channels, the theoretical noisiness of the channel may not actually make any difference.

And, if you are using a dongle, the 5GHz antennas would be easier to package in the space available, but that doesn't (usually) apply to laptops/netbooks or access points, where there is more room to build efficient 2.4G antennas.

You are correct salasi, n is not a band. My error. My new toy (netbook) works fine so I guess I will enjoy it and not worry about the other signals - unless they begin to present a problem.

Ken