Byte Me by Marv Dealy
Sharing Your Internet Signal with a Neighbor
From the mailbag (hey, out there readers, send more questions – you will never receive a bill with the answer and your name might make the paper, who knows, for something other than shooting your dog while cleaning one of your guns) comes an interesting question that I’ll answer somewhat circumspectly.
Writes (we’ll leave the writer’s name out here): “I have a question about routers. I was wondering if there was a way to use my satellite connection to help a neighbor get high speed internet service in his home. He has a laptop computer and is not happy about having dial up service. So is there a way to do this? If there is then I was hoping you could lead me in the right direction as far as equipment goes. Thanks for your time.”
The short answer is technically it’s not legal to share your Internet signal with any neighbor. See the fine print in the contract you agreed to when you got your service, be it DSL, cable, satellite or wireless. You people on dialup don’t need to worry about the legality of sharing your signal; trust me, no one wants it.
On the other hand, if you have considered the implications of your neighbor using too much of your monthly allotment of signal and are willing to suffer the service slowdowns if between the both of you just too many movies are downloaded (according to that fine print, once again), be my guest. You need to consider at last for a few seconds what would happen if for some reason your signal was turned off as a result of your activities, as well.
To share with your neighbor, you’ll need a router that uses 802.11b/g as opposed to the new N protocols if you want to go through your walls, over the hills, through the woods and thence to the neighbor’s house with your loaned cup of Internet.
An example that I found by Googling for a Linksys B/G router is the model WRT54G wireless router, available on the Internet from under $60. It is a wireless access point, which is how you refer to what you’re trying to do, and has both B and G capabilities. It has two stubby antennae that will help your neighbor’s efforts to pick up your signal. Your neighbor, of course, will need a wireless card or something similar for his laptop that is B/G compatible. Again, these are somewhat “older” but you should be able to find them as well.
Depending on your neighbor’s proximity to where you’ll put the router, you will experience greater or lesser success with your experiment, which is what I’d call it. If there are barns, trees, and even hills between you, forget it. If you can put the router in a window so that the signal only has to pass through the window glass before it heads for your neighbor, it’ll be better than if it has to pierce dozens of interior walls (perhaps filled with electrical stuff or plumbing or even lead shielding, who knows). The signal will even lose some strength going through people, so that needs to be considered as well.
If you want your sharing of signal to be yours and your neighbors secret only, you’ll want to change the password that comes with the router (likely either “admin” or “1234”) or any Tom, Dick, or Harry driving by can stop and cruise the Internet from their vehicle by logging into your access point.
What about just grabbing your neighbor’s signal?
What do other people think about grabbing an Internet WiFi signal, whether with or without the owner of that signal’s permission? I found several online polls that seem to indicate that most people who responded to the polls (and hey, they could all be hackers, we don’t know) think you should be able to grab any signal you can get with or without permission. I don’t know that I’d go that far. But again, if you’re too lazy to change the basic password on your access point, then I’d think you’re flying the big, freakin’ “be my guest” flag for anyone to use.
I was interested to see comments people have posted at various places around the Internet, adding to the discussion of whether it’s okay to logon to any signal that happens to spill across your laptop, wherever you might be. Technically, it’s illegal in the United States. Practically speaking, people have been arrested under laws you might describe as “fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks” laws in a variety of states and countries for that matter.
On the other hand, I once read that a law forbidding feeding your horse with a nosebag on Market Street in San Francisco was still on the books. I point this out to ponder whether laws that were written before anyone was envisioning the situation we’re talking about here – neighbors helping neighbors with a small, private Internet access point – have any more current, rightful place on the books than that clearly antiquated rule governing how you can feed your horse in San Francisco.
Email questions to Marv at: marv.dealy@throck.com.
Marv Dealy founded Throckmorten Enterprises in San Francisco in 1988 and moved the company to Big Oak Flat in 1996. Open Monday through Friday, 9-ish to 5-ish (209- 962-7308). The company provides technical support for a large Silicon Valley company’s webinars, as well as providing professional website design, and computer and network maintenance. The company also publishes the Yosemite Gazette.
