We always say "It would never happen to me..."
When we think of bad things that happen to people, our first reaction (if we were to be honest with ourselves) is that "it would never happen to me". Indeed, we can think of 101 tragedies that always seem to happen to someone we know, or someone we read about etc. etc. My recent 'it would never happen to me' moment, was less tragic than most, but I was nonetheless victim of my own arrogance of things happening only to other people.
I pay $29.99/mo. for my internet connection - not the best of prices I am sure, but I have had this account since cable internet was first available in my area. At one time, that account was "limitless" buffet connection. One flat rate for as much as you can stuff in your mouth. Over the last few years, that has changed (but sadly the price has not). I am allowed 20g of downloads, and 10g of uploads... usually not a problem since we don't download movies, rarely do we file share or buy music online. Although I was informed today that my WOXY.com daily habit could potentially blow my limit (although I cannot imagine how). Today I received my monthly cable bill to notice that there was $30 extra dollars in over-my-limit usage fees. Looking at the numbers, I was astonished, some days as much as 2gigs of downloaded material (for a surpassed amount of 11gigs of downloads).
My first instinct was to call the cable company and ask WTH! but after repeating my birthdate and address for "security" reasons, the tech support on the other end asks - "do you run a wireless router ma'am?"... why, "yes I do" I reply. He then asks me to click on it and read him what it says... a few mouse clicks later... I sheepishly read aloud "WLAN. Unsecured Wireless Connection; Firewalled". "Ahhh" he says - it seems that since October 23rd, you have had someone piggybacking on your wireless - and they were making sure they got the most out of it.
Sadly, there is nothing can do since it was an unsecured network. But "please ma'am make sure you secure it soon if you do not wish to support the neighborhood's downloading habits".
The sad ... ironic... frustrating thing is, is that I live with a tech person. One who studied Internet Security & Networking (of which we paid a fortune for!) and have friends who work in security & networking for a few big companies. My partner has hooked up a secured network for several of my friends. It is not out of the inability to know what we were doing that I did not have a secured network - but rather, out of laziness; out of 'always getting around to our own stuff last'; and more than likely, out of the "it would never happen to me" blase attitude some of get when nothing bad ever happens.
Guess its time to secure these networks and let free wireless groups support the neighborhood.
I pay $29.99/mo. for my internet connection - not the best of prices I am sure, but I have had this account since cable internet was first available in my area. At one time, that account was "limitless" buffet connection. One flat rate for as much as you can stuff in your mouth. Over the last few years, that has changed (but sadly the price has not). I am allowed 20g of downloads, and 10g of uploads... usually not a problem since we don't download movies, rarely do we file share or buy music online. Although I was informed today that my WOXY.com daily habit could potentially blow my limit (although I cannot imagine how). Today I received my monthly cable bill to notice that there was $30 extra dollars in over-my-limit usage fees. Looking at the numbers, I was astonished, some days as much as 2gigs of downloaded material (for a surpassed amount of 11gigs of downloads).
My first instinct was to call the cable company and ask WTH! but after repeating my birthdate and address for "security" reasons, the tech support on the other end asks - "do you run a wireless router ma'am?"... why, "yes I do" I reply. He then asks me to click on it and read him what it says... a few mouse clicks later... I sheepishly read aloud "WLAN. Unsecured Wireless Connection; Firewalled". "Ahhh" he says - it seems that since October 23rd, you have had someone piggybacking on your wireless - and they were making sure they got the most out of it.
Sadly, there is nothing can do since it was an unsecured network. But "please ma'am make sure you secure it soon if you do not wish to support the neighborhood's downloading habits".
The sad ... ironic... frustrating thing is, is that I live with a tech person. One who studied Internet Security & Networking (of which we paid a fortune for!) and have friends who work in security & networking for a few big companies. My partner has hooked up a secured network for several of my friends. It is not out of the inability to know what we were doing that I did not have a secured network - but rather, out of laziness; out of 'always getting around to our own stuff last'; and more than likely, out of the "it would never happen to me" blase attitude some of get when nothing bad ever happens.
Guess its time to secure these networks and let free wireless groups support the neighborhood.
posted by Kelly at
14:53
2 Comments:
Sorry to hear this Kell. Agree that this seems to be the "cobbler's kids" Scenario. Hope all will be fixed in the new place!
By
Sashay, at 7/12/06 12:55 p.m.
Oh I see what you mean all too well. My own wireless network is marked as "unsecured" but I fixed a whitelist filter so my internet connection only works with the wireless cards of my computers and rejects any other. The problem is that the network itself isn't secure, so I wanted to modify my file sharing between pcs but - guess what - WinXP HOME does not allow that! Why, it would be far too complicated for people to set their own file sharing parameters! So either I share my folders with the whole planet (that can manage to get in range of my wireless network anyway) or I don't share anything and have to constantly plug-in plug-out my USB drive to keep both of my hard drives synchronized (yeah, right...). In the end your story convinced me of the urge to tweak some things on my router.
One thing though. Even if someone managed to steal my internet connection through some mysterious means, I have unlimited download for 30$ a month (which amounts to 34.95$ with taxes). I'm with Radioactif.com. You might want to check it out, altough with proper network security you likely will never experience such a problem again.
By
Anonymous, at 13/12/06 2:06 p.m.
Post a Comment
<< Home