Question about sharing a router with another tenant

mya...@yahoo.ca

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Oct 30, 2014, 6:45:16 PM10/30/14

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Hello there,

Not sure this is the place for my question but I'll give it a try.

I just rented out this appartment with WIFI included in the rental price. Then I found out that the router is inside an adjacent appartment (because the landlord is also renting out a second appartment).

So, I'm wondering what the implications are here. Can the neighbor intercept the stuff I'm sending/viewing? And could he hack into my PC? How easy would it be for a non-hacker?

My PC has Windows XP Home.

Thanks for any advice.

rickman

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Oct 30, 2014, 11:48:34 PM10/30/14

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First, I will say I am no expert on this. I haven't seen where a store
bought router gives specific capabilities to monitor what the various
connections are doing over the internet. But it is not beyond the realm
of possibility. More importantly if the router is in someone else's
apartment they could set up their own router on their PC with the same
ID and have full access to everything passing through. I think is very
insecure.

I don't suppose he can run a cable to your apartment or put the router
someplace more secure?

--

Rick

mya...@yahoo.ca

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Oct 31, 2014, 9:23:41 AM10/31/14

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And couldn't I do the same to him then? I mean, isn't he just as vulnerable to me? I wonder if there's a way to detect if he is doing or not. If he did then I would just get my own ISP account.

> I don't suppose he can run a cable to your apartment or put the router
> someplace more secure?

I'll have to ask if there are any such options. But what would it change to have the router locked away? Would it be possible/easier to hack me by tampering with the router's harware?

>
> --
>
> Rick

rickman

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Oct 31, 2014, 1:10:08 PM10/31/14

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On 10/31/2014 9:23 AM, mya...@yahoo.ca wrote:
> On Friday, October 31, 2014 4:48:34 AM UTC+1, rickman wrote:
>> On 10/30/2014 6:45 PM, mya...@yahoo.ca wrote:
>>> Hello there,
>>>
>>> Not sure this is the place for my question but I'll give it a try.
>>>
>>> I just rented out this appartment with WIFI included in the rental price. Then I found out that the router is inside an adjacent appartment (because the landlord is also renting out a second appartment).
>>>
>>> So, I'm wondering what the implications are here. Can the neighbor intercept the stuff I'm sending/viewing? And could he hack into my PC? How easy would it be for a non-hacker?
>>>
>>> My PC has Windows XP Home.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any advice.
>>
>> First, I will say I am no expert on this. I haven't seen where a store
>> bought router gives specific capabilities to monitor what the various
>> connections are doing over the internet. But it is not beyond the realm
>> of possibility. More importantly if the router is in someone else's
>> apartment they could set up their own router on their PC with the same
>> ID and have full access to everything passing through. I think is very
>> insecure.
>
> And couldn't I do the same to him then? I mean, isn't he just as vulnerable to me? I wonder if there's a way to detect if he is doing or not. If he did then I would just get my own ISP account.

It is harder to log into the router through the wifi connection. But if
you can reset the router and are connected to the Ethernet port, you can
use the login info printed on the router case. My point is that he can
disable the wifi on the router and put up his own wifi connection that
you will log into which will actually be his computer.

Is any of this likely, no. But if he is very tech savvy and wants to,
it is possible.

>> I don't suppose he can run a cable to your apartment or put the router
>> someplace more secure?
>
> I'll have to ask if there are any such options. But what would it change to have the router locked away? Would it be possible/easier to hack me by tampering with the router's harware?

As I indicated above, if he has access to the Ethernet ports and default
login info, he can get into the router configuration utility which lets
him do lots of sneaky things.

Then lastly, routers sometimes need to be reset. Maybe this is not so
true of more modern routers, but some years ago it was not uncommon to
reboot your router more often than your PC.

--

Rick