Networking Questions and Answers -How to Tell if Someone is Using/Stealing your Wireless Internet Connection

Jim writes in with a networking question
Question:How can I tell if someone is piggybacking my wireless connection?

Answer: If you are using a wireless router for your internet connection then you can log into it and see if it is giving out any IP address to other computers besides your own. This process will vary depending on your brand of router but you can look for something that says setup or administration. Then look for a network or DHCP area to see what IP addresses your router is handing out. It may be called something like DHCP clients table. There may also be a DHCP log that tells you who was connected to your router in the past. If you open a command prompt and type in ipconfig /all then you can find your IP address and MAC address (sometimes called physical address) and compare it to other listings in the log file.

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