"Alex Heney" <me8@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:3vwcbzcuy8u5.mdegbmq8y9tv.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 10:45:21 +0100, The Todal in message
> <news:3krnpkFughvgU1@individual.net> wrote:
>
>> "Paul Harper" <paul@harper.net> wrote in message
>> news:6i9he1hog3fnnt9lifridsfcdlr7jjj2r9@4ax.com...
>>> On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 10:08:10 +0100, "The Todal" <deadmailbox@beeb.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I often wondered whether it was legal to do so, having had neighbours
>>>>hijack
>>>>my connection, and having discovered that my own kids were sometimes
>>>>inadvertently hijacking a neighbour's connection.
>>>>
>>>>Yet another way for law abiding citizens to find themselves in breach of
>>>>the
>>>>law, then
>>>
>>> I don't have a lot of sympathy - anyone who doesn't put security on
>>> their wireless network deserves all they get as far as I am concerned.
>>
>> Agreed. I now use security on my home wireless broadband. It does
>> unfortunately mean that when my kids are trying to connect, their
>> computers
>> connect them to the neighbour's service and seemingly I can't prevent
>> that.
>> Or at least, if there is a way I'd like to know it.
>>
>
> Quite easy.
>
> All wireless routers I am aware of have the facility to change the SSID
> (it
> usually defaults to something like "NETGEAR", or "3COM").
>
> If you change it to something unique to you, and then set the kids laptop
> to only connect to that network, rather than to "any network in range",
> then they should always use yours.

Hmmm. I'll have a go. I seem to remember that you can anyway ask your
computer for a list of wireless services and can then ask it to connect to
one, even if the default is your own one. I might be wrong. I would feel a
bit uncomfortable asking the neighbour to use security in case my kids
browse their network, because I don't know how the neighbour would react to
that.