An unlocked wi-fi connection is available where I live, but it's not from one of the neighbours.
It comes through at 100 per cent - stronger than my own Sky wireless service.
It's on the list of available connections as 'dlink' followed by my street name.
Click on it, and off you go at broadband speeds.
A Google of dlink shows it to be some American computer company, but no mention of free-for-all internet access.
Can anyone shed any light on what I presume is some community get connected scheme?
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Dlink is the maker of the router. Someone has decided not to restrict access to their router for some reason (and therefore their network). It is not some community get connected scheme.
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Its not encrypted? (ie, no WEP or WPA keys needed?)
Then I'd be wary. Its been known for individuals to set honey traps like this.
May not be, but if no encryption, be wary.
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If it needs no password then it's not encrypted - it cannot be. Therefore everything you type can be snooped including usernames and passwords. In short don't use it.
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The router make involved is D-Link.
However, apart from being unwise to use such an open connection, it's also an offence.
At least one individual has been fined £500 and given a 12 month conditional discharge for using a wi-fi broadband connection in this way.
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You could probably dial into the router and switch off the WiFi, see who starts complaining.
Caution - following this advice could get you into trouble.
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Wander round with a laptop/mobile with wireless and see where the signal gets weaker and it might reduce the possibilities in terms of its location.
Seems odd it has dlink and the street name as most spods that are too dim to switch on security aren't likely to manage changing the name... I'd expect dlink and house name or dlink and family name.
I'd connect to it and see if I could get at the router admin page. Secure it then see who complains :-) Or just post notes through everyone's door asking who has a dlink router with that name and see if anyone answers.
If you can get at the admin page you could probably see who else is also connected and that may give you an idea of who it belongs to.
If it is unsecured then it would be easy for someone to connect to it by mistake if their router had a problem and windoze just picked this as next available connection. Especially as it is giving out such a strong signal. With 100% signal then it is likely to be an immediate neighbour.
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In my younger days well about five years ago I once logged into an unsecured network and changed the SID to "existingname_pleasesecureme". There are laws against that sort of thing though.
The most common reason for an unsecured network is the user does not know how to secure it. It was very common when i first started out but now most routers are supplied by an ISP so are always secured by default.
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Some interesting replies, although I don't grasp all the technical stuff.
I was using the signal yesterday and today because I've left my main laptop in the caravan, so I was down to my little Eee PC which is not set up to use my Sky connection.
I'm not too bothered about getting nicked for using the wireless signal.
But I had not even considered any security risks, so thanks for pointing those out.
M'thinks me and dlink will be dlinked no more.
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I was working on a car the other week in a rural area and I was amazed to have the Toughbook tell me that it had just updated the anti-virus?? [I'd left the wireless active.]
Checking the wireless networks found an unsecured BTOpen-something listed. [I can't recall the exact name]
Are there such free Wi-Fi points and would there really be one in a tiny village?
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Probably BTOpenzone? I would think that's the default SSID ( wireless network's name) for the standard BT domestic broadband product. There have been various attempts at using people's domestic WiFi to provide a free large scale network, but I don't think any of them have taken off in the UK. I live in a fairly rural area, admittedly on the edge of a village, and can often pick up half a dozen networks, most of them are secured these days.
When we're going on about 'dialing in to the router' or suchlike then we're talking about accessing the router's setup information, which is done via a normal web browser. Netgear and DLink for example generally use 192.168.0.1 as the IP address of the router''s internal homepage. Not a good idea to muck about with the settings if you don't know what you're doing.
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Free internet access, but where from? - rtj70
