Quote:
Originally Posted by Pandora3
Hi I am not real computer savvy nor is my domestic partner so I thought I would ask a couple of questions on a site where it would most seem likely to be answered in the simplest ways. Okay to start with my partner bought a wireless router to be able to hook up my own p.c. in my little study. The other day the thought occurred to me that anyone who knows computers could somehow see everything I do on my computer because I've heard horror stories of stuff like this happening. Last night his nephew came over after buying a new notepad and used our password to connect it to the wifi. My main question is this, did that give him the ability to see everything I do on my desktop p c? O.M.G. this is scary, can someone please answer this question? 
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It's unlikely that anyone will monitor your wifi packets, but you should set your wireless router's security settings to high security to prevent unauthorized access.
Set the encryption to WPA2 or whatever the best is your wifi router has, set up MAC filtering (if you don't mind the inconvenience whenever new wifi devices connect to the router), and you could set the wifi to not broadcast the SSID to make it more difficult for your neighbors and wardrivers (wardrivers are hackers who travel looking for wifi to hack into usually to get internet access).
If your wifi router has adjustable broadcast power strength, for added security you could limit the usable distance by set it on a low but reliable setting for the distances you & your partner are likely to be away from the router. It takes experimentation to find a good setting. And/or if your router still broadcasts reliably without the antenna on it, you could remove it.
If you don't trust your nephew, then why did you give him the password? You could always change the password and even the SSID if you don't want him to have access to your network in the future.
You could disable the wifi when it's not in use, at the sacrifice of convenience.
And never mention your passwords or anything else that can compromise security over a cordless phone or cellphone because hackers could be listening. I'm not a hacker, but in the past I used to sometimes eavesdrop on my neighbors' cordless phone calls, and one told her husband their AT&T user name and password during a conversation. I also used to eavesdrop in conversations of a cellphone tower relay.
I use all of those security measures I mentioned above, I even have the antenna removed on my WAP because its signal output is even strong at the lowest broadcast power setting, and my wifi is almost always off as I normally use hardwired ethernet. I mostly just turn on the wifi when someone is over who needs wifi and when it's needed for the BluWave or Roku (which I rarely use).
Yep, I'm paranoid about hackers.
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