Using a neighbor's wireless internet

A

annfi

Registered
Sorry, I am a newbie to the laptop world - hubby got me a wonderful new
MacBook running on 10.4.8
Two questions, if I am in say, an airport, that is supposed to have free
wireless, how do I connect in to that via the Airport - seems like I need
a password?
Other question, I'm going to be visiting my Mom and I know
her next door neighbor has wireless internet and I was going to
ask him if I could sign in to it - do I just need to get a password from him?
Does, that seem like too much to ask of a nice neighbor?
Thanks for the help.
 
Hi annfi,

1. from menu bar, airport symbol, select the network or give the credentials. Depending on what has been set for which networks security, you may need password in a format, or you many need user credentials if something nicer (like radius) has been set up.

2. Ask that neighbor. Also because if you would just find out the password for it by your own that would be still using it without permission. If you are only going to be there every now and then and use it very little, most likely they will be fine with it.

(Moved to networking..)
 
Thanks everyone. It was actually a BREEZE getting
on. I did call the neighbor ahead of time and he said
he didn't have any password protection and we were more than welcome to use it. Turns out when we turned on the laptop it automatically picked
up another wireless in the neighborhood but we did
switch over to the neighbor we had asked ahead of time.

Thanks!
 
Make sure your neighbor doesn't get in trouble for having more than one user/computer on his network. Sometimes ISP's are very specific about this and recognize how many ips each user is giving out. Just being paranoid. :)
 
Then those ISPs would be actively hacking your WiFi router, natobasso, unless that router was _not_ configured for NAT (which is the default for any maker, I believe). From my time working for an ISP I know that as soon as the user uses NAT, all you know from the outside is that he's _probably_ using more than one computer internally. Since that neighbour already had a WiFi network running, quite probably the ISP doesn't notice whether it's 1 or 20 users connected to that network. Apart from a spike in traffic, maybe.
 
It is still only going to show an extra "internal" DHCP IP address, no different than
if it was the neighbor sitting on his front porch with a wireless enabled laptop.
 
Natobasso said:
Though I didn't see the poster said the router was set to NAT?
Click to expand...
Of course it didn't say that. Did you get the feeling, from the OP, that such kind of information would be given? That's why I said that the default setting for most WiFi routers nowadays is to provide NAT/DHCP automatically. I can be expected to be such a setup.
 
If you are connecting to an unsecured wireless network, you should enable your firewall and disable any sharing features you do not need. It sounds like you can trust your neighbor, but anyone can drive by, pick up the network, and do damage to unprotected machines..

All this can be done in the Sharing tab of System Preferences.
 
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