My linksys router has been dead for atleast a month, so I convinced my dad to get a d-link wireless router for our home network (I'm the only one with a wireless reciever so far, the rest are still wired). When the wireless kicked out for a couple minutes, I tried scanning for the network, and lone behold...
[img]http://www.skylarbowker.com/wireless.JPG[/img]
I've connected through it a few times for fun, sometimes when my home network isn't detected for whatever reason. She doesn't have anything shared, and I wasn't able to access her computer. Should I bother warning her about this? Is there any way for somebody to gain access to her computer through an unencrypted wireless connection?

I haven't tried opening her WAP (she might be using her computer as a gateway though, when I look at the connection it appears to be that way), would this be the worst someone can do?

I can see the guy accross the street's network too. Infact, one time I logged onto his network and loaded up bit torrent :). I figure I could share tons of stuff through his network and be a be a bit safer from the MPAA and RIAA. But I am usually too lazy to do this, and there is the fact that I have to do it though my mom's pc since my pc is sitting right next to the router and I am connected to it via cat5.

I am also using a d-link wireless router, and of course I have the encryption on (64bit).

I had 64 bit on, but read somewhere that it's broken too easily, I haven't noticed a drop in performance. Were/are you able to get access to his computer? How strong is the signal? I get 60%-80% from my router around the corner and down the hall, and 40%-50% from hers, I'm assuming it's right next door.

Edit: Can't connect to 192.168.0.1, must be using it as a gateway?

Wireless encryption is a joke.  Any of it can be broken in reasonable time.  The thing is, if you have WEP or anything enabled, it's just too much trouble, generally, people will just go to the next block and use an unencrypted one.

If you know who it is, or you can find the person, the "right" thing to do is to talk to go there, knock on the door, explain what they're doing and what the risks are.  Tell them that their neighbour could sit on her connection sharing child porn, and when the RCMP comes, they won't be coming for the neighbour.  You're accountable for your own connection.  Odds are you won't serve time in jail, but you will likely end up in court for felony charges.  Explain that, and explain that you will voluntarely activate the encryption and show them how to use it, and if you have any problems call me at ###-####.  That's the "right" thing to do. 

I talked to a guy at work who's been in the networking (and security) world for 25 years, and that's what he told me is the best thing.  It's about doing your best to help the world.

I am using encryption just because I do not want people to be able to leach off of my internet. I am not really worried about anyone using a birthday cake or whatever attack to get the key.

I never did try to get access to the box, I would assume the ip would be something like 192.168.0.101 or something. I think 192.168.0.1 was probably the default gateway, that is what my default gateway is. But if you type 192.168.0.1 into a browser, are you prompted for a password and username? The signal strength for the dude across the street was actually fairly good. IIRC last time I checked it was about 60%, and the strengh of the signal from our router (which is on the other side of the house from my mom's pc) is generally around 80%.

If you want to know what he has:
- Log into the network on dhcp
- Check your address and subnet.  Say it's 192.168.1.103 and 255.255.255.0
- Do an nmap scan across his network, "nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24" (the 24 comes from the subnet, 255.255.255.0 = 24, 255.255.0.0 = 16, that's all you should need)
- Any hosts are aren't firewalled should come up.

Example:
[quote]iago@Slayer:~$ nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24

Starting nmap 3.78 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2005-01-02 19:55 CST
Host 192.168.1.1 appears to be up.
Host darkside (192.168.1.3) appears to be up.
Host 192.168.1.100 appears to be up.
Host 192.168.1.101 appears to be up.
Host 192.168.1.102 appears to be up.
Nmap run completed -- 256 IP addresses (5 hosts up) scanned in 2.483 seconds
iago@Slayer:~$
[/quote]

That's my home network.  Nmap also runs on Windows, and you can get it at http://www.insecure.org.  I frequently used this technique to scan subnets at work :)

nmap didn't seem to like my computer for some reason; it seems just about everything i tried, it would say "Unable to determine what interface to route packets through to x.y.z.ip"

I was thinking -e, but I couldn't figure out how to get the name of my default interface? Maybe someone can show me how?

But in the end, -S source_addr works.  :)