I was just wondering what are the danger of using other people's WiFi and how do you prevent it from happening?

I pay for my own wireless service and many times i get disconnected (DSL Light continuously blinks) and have trouble getting logged back on. On several occasions now, when bidding on an item in an eBay auction is about to end, bids that i have made get out bid, and when i try to rebid, i get disconnected and lose out on the item. Another time they usually happen is when i play online poker and i get disconnected and timed out on a hand were i end up losing money.

my disconnections usually happen nightly and they happen on crucial situations that is costing me money.

I was wondering what are the dangers of using an unprotected WiFi source for things like eBay and Internet Poker? Are there ways to protect myself from those dangers?

I know that using other people WiFi is immoral and probably illegal, but the WiFi source i've stumbled into gets great speeds (2850Kb/s on speakeasy speedtest) and i doubt they would get a slow down from me using it for ebay or internet poker. I've used the connection in the past just to surf the net when my connection was down, and prevented myself from logging into any online accounts, but i do know it is a stable connection.

Thanks in advance for reading and maybe giving your two cents.

Others can access your interent and use your bandwith without you ever knowing. You need tobuy and install one. I advise you use geeksquad, they are the best at installing things like that, but *BLEEP* is not cheap. Do this so you will not take the risk of loosing yor interente ever again!

This post has been edited by bk2070: Feb 2 2007, 11:47 PM

to rephrase the question i posted. what are the dangers of using wifi connections (like internet cafes) and are there ways to make those dangers go away (like firewalls and other programs)? Or are those risks just there and you just have to take them?

Well I answered what you initially posted, which was unrelated to the question currently posted. But, to make use to the question asked, yes there are ways to protect yourselves when using (others( wi-fi. But remember, using an internet cafe's wi-fi or any other businesses that offer wi-fi free is okay, but using your neighbors or somebody who is not distributing their wi-fi is illegal. The things you can do are what you just posted like firewalls, etc. Use some anti-virus software as well to secure yourself in case somebody infects you with a virus over the connection, because these connections are easily viewable to others. Also, do not send personal information when accesing these connections like credit card numbers or s.s #'s . Those can be easily accessed to by somebody who knows computers very well. Then they can use this information to commit identity theft and loads of other wicked things. Your best bet is to just use a connection that is secured by a W.E.P . or some other kind of security because other wise you might as well give your personal information out because they are so easily accessible!

Using someone elses WiFi without their permission is illegal. If you were paying hundreds of pounds a year for Sky, that doesn't give other people the right to come into your living room and watch it. Internet cafes usually have relatively good protection in the way of their own hardware firewall etc, ut you are not protected from other users actually in the cafe. I have seen people before sit in an Internet cafe and just monitor the traffic for credit card numbers, passwords, whatever.

Avoid giving out any identifiable information at all. You are much better off doing that at home, where you have control over the security and know what is happening.