My new neighbor: The most evil man on earth

[Mercutio]

OK, not really. It's not like he's George W. Bush or anything.

But he's pretty bad.

This guy moved in about two weeks ago.
He works from home and talks on a 2.4GHz cell phone constantly. He has an 802.11 AP (with, hey, all the defaults left in place). These things didn't cause a problem for him.

Normally this isn't a problem for me, either, since I'm a forward-thinking guy and normally use 802.11A for wireless with my laptop and downstairs PC. I also have 802.11G equipment, but I tend not to use it.

Except this guy's wife finally moved in. And their $#%#$%#ing babies. And a 5GHz, frequency-hopping baby monitor.

Why the hell does a baby monitor need to #$^%ing hop frequencies? For that matter, isn't the 5GHz band categorically unsuited to baby-monitor use? I guess not.

So here's my 802.11A signal meter, over a 5-minute period:
Minute One:
Speed: 54Mbps
Strength: Very Good

Minute Two:
Speed: 18Mpbs
Strength: Good

Minute Three:
Speed: 2Mbps (!)
Strength: Low

Minute Four
Speed: 11Mbps
Strength: Low

Minute Five:
Speed: 24Mbps
Strength: Good

Now, any time my signal strength dips to "low", I can't do dick on my home network, much less the internet.

The problem is, his baby monitor is all of about 20 feet from my AP (through two walls and both our yards obviously). If I move my AP much, my downstairs desktop loses its ability to associate with my network completely, 11A being more sensitive to that sort of thing. Oops.

So... Switch to the "G" network. Many of the same problems. His AP is squatting on channel 6, his phone is causing tons of interference on 1/2/3 (no connection). 11? 11 works but is "shakey", wavering around 11Mbps (9/10 barely function; 1Mbit, anyone?). I suspect someone close by is using 11, too, even though I can't see his network. If I wanted to be an ass, I could probably log in and move his AP to use channel one, but I suspect that's probably illegal somehow.

So right now my downstairs network has a barely-there, just-waiting to be interfered with WLAN. I'm going to build a better antenna for my desktop, but honestly, I'm not holding out much hope.

You guys who are talking about, or thinking about setting up WLANs, let this be a lesson. Other people's crap can screw you royally.

 

[Clocker]

Man...that bites big nuts, Merc. Just go in there and change the channel...it isn't like you're snooping his data or anything and you will both probably benefit. No one will ever know, especially if you erase any potential logs on the router ;-) .

Too bad you could not run some type of 'jammer' on the 2.4ghz stuff to get him frustrated and switch to some other equipment. It seems like you are the only one being inconvenienced at this point.

Good luck to ya....

C

 

[Mercutio]

The worst thing is that he appears to be using his WLAN to share a dialup connection and a couple printers.

I keep thinking how evil it would be to print out a bunch of crap on his printers (That? What? You don't like printouts of Paisley patterns?), but, again, that's probably illegal somehow.

 

[blakerwry]

maybe you should talk to him. Let him know that is network is insecure and offer to fix it for him. Do it in such a way as to allow yourself a better connection whie you're at it.

One thought, my gear lets me use channel 14 if i want to. I know it's not FCC allowed, but perhaps that would yield better results?

 

[blakerwry]

or better yet, buy them a new baby monitor that doesnt use 5GHz.

 

[sechs]

This is easy: Print up a page on one of his printers asking him to clean-up his wireless emissions. Use the largest font that will fit on one page. Print it once a day until he fixes everything. Keep it anonymous.

 

[blakerwry]

well, you have to keep it completely anonymous or completely straight forward. Best make up your mind now.

 

[ddrueding]

well, you have to keep it completely anonymous or completely straight forward. Best make up your mind now.

Agreed. But I can't see how broadcasting anything on (obviously) public channels is illegal. The "honest" approach sounds like too much work, just changing his channels would work better.

Me? I'd just wire your place instead. That way you benefit from your work instead of some n00b

 

[Fushigi]

Does your AP have the ability to accept a signal booster like some Linksys gear? If so, that may be a discreet way of simply overpowering his devices.

 

[Mercutio]

.

Me? I'd just wire your place instead. That way you benefit from your work instead of some n00b

Place is wired. Upstairs, 4 or 8 ports per room, and into a closet downstairs.Even my garage has 4 ports. But I have one PC that's along an exterior wall, in a very large room with a cathedral ceiling and tile-over-concrete floor. Perfect candidate for wireless.

Anyway, Im hoping the guy is BBQing today, so I can tell him what a pain he is.

 

[Jan Kivar]

Set your APs so that they interfere with the neighbour's devices, and wait for him either to change to another channel, or come out to talk to You.

Cheers,

Jan

 

[CityK]

Or lease a couple of EA-6B Prowlers

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Too bad the baby monitor is freq hopping. Otherwise you could have caused interference on it and perhaps broadcast the audio streams of your favourite vids They would have switched back down to 2.4GHz pretty soon me thinks.....

EMP devices for the home, Merc needs one now dammnit! Either that or a big roll of alfoil.

 

[CityK]

you could have caused interference on it and perhaps broadcast the audio streams of your favourite vids

Has all the hallmark qualities in place for another classic Jerry episode: Indiana infant adicted to Porn!

 

[Adcadet]

just ask the guy to switch channels. And how do you know about the baby monitor? If you know through legit reasons, maybe you can ask him to move it or change it's channel too.

Hey Kev - nice skull. You didn't get that from an anatomy site I was working on at the U of M, did you?

 

[Mercutio]

I can see the monitor through a window, especially at night, when their lights are on and the blinds are open. They could probably see me, too, but only by monitor-light, since I don't turn lights on very often. Our houses are the same design, mirror images of each other. Like I said, it's only about 20 feet away...

Anyway, the rat bastard appears to have gone elsewhere for his holiday festivity, so no brutal confortation as of yet.

 

[Tea]

I like the EA-6B Prowler option, myself.

Eiher that or a small tactical nuclear weapon fused for air-burst in the stratosphere so as to produce an effective pulse.

(Don't forget to wrap your computer gear up in aluminium foil first.)

(Oh, and take your ati-radiation sickness vitamins.)

 

[Mercutio]

You know, ATI has been accused of a great many things, but until now I'd never heard of ati-radiation...

 

[Tea]

You know, ATI has been accused of a great many things, but until now I'd never heard of ati-radiation...

Maybe that should be ati-radeon (or however you spell it).

Actually, I missed an "n" - it should have been anti-radiation. In fact, come to think of it, I often miss an "n" when faced with an ATI product: to be specific, "n" as in "Nvidia".

(Mercitio vomits. Oh well, another day, another offended reader. Much as usual really.)

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Baby monitors are notorious for interference and being expensive for what they do. So frequency hopping and 5GHz might sound outrageous to you but to someone who has had a baby monitor and has no knowledge of frequency issues, those sound like features.

At the apartment, we use to get somebody else's baby on our monitor. We think they got ours too. We played musical channels for a while. In the house, we used to get a neighbors phone calls. My wife came home with a new baby monitor a while ago and we haven't had any issues since.

 

[The Grammar Police]

In the old days, having issue was another way of saying a happy event or, to be more specific, producing yet another baby.

Still, all things considered, it's probably cheaper to have another electronic device. Even if you do have to resort to hard-wired network connections.

Mercutio, just be grateful that you only have cats to deal with. Five-year-olds are incredibmy destructive.

 

[Mercutio]

Issue has other meanings as well, some even more novel than the one tGP came up with.

Anyway, I have a "fix" for the moment: 10' cable to USB hub, which is now hung off a curtain rod, to 6' USB cable, which has a Netgear WG121 802.11G adaptor, which is balanced atop a picture frame. Maybe 20 feet of open air from the AP.

Signal still drops, but hey, I'm all the way up to "22Mbit" connectivity now. I put in the double-quotes 'cause, at "22Mbit", it just took 2 minutes to save five files totalling 900kB on one of my file servers.

Yup. I think I'm gonna have hurt that guy.

 

[ddrueding]

Perhaps small directional antennas would work? If the focus was tight enough, it might help quite a bit (increasing gain for your device, decreasing for his).

 

[ddrueding]

There was that article in slashdot about DDoSing WiFi, it looks like your neighbor found an easier way.

 

[Tea]

What about a large directional antenna? One that is pointed in the general direction of his baby monitor, cranked up to a wattage just under that required to boil water, and fed with something educational and interesting, such as a live broadcast of the Iowa Pork Bellies Futures Exchange?

 

[time]

1. One piece of air-conditioning ducting (ribbed tube covered in metal foil).
2. One microwave oven.
3. Attach carefully, ensuring good grounding.
4. Stand well back.
5. Yes, it's half the frequency, but consider the harmonics.

 

[Mercutio]

Well, I saw him this morning whilst taking out my trash, and asked him if he knew/understood what all his wireless crap is doing, explained that his wireless gear was insecure, and that his baby monitor was causing me much grief.

He acted like I had committed some kind of felony for even knowing about the baby monitor (like I said, I can see it from my window, which I explained) and started to accuse me of being a "hacker" for being able to see the printers on his WLAN. What he didn't do, in our 10 minute conversation was say he would do anything about any of the above.

--
When I was in college, the way I dealt with idiots playing their music too loud was to turn my stereo up louder. Much louder. Since I always had my oldest brother's hand-me-down equipment, I always had something much louder than everyone else (I had this giant Rotel stereo amp - it probably weighed 75lbs...). Usually loud enough that I could take a shower, in a bathroom on another floor of my dormitory, and still comfortably hear my music.
Then I'd come back to my room, turn my stereo down, and if I didn't hear much from anyone else, I'd leave it that way.
Usually it took the newbies about 3 days to figure out they weren't going to win, and after that, everything would be nice and quiet.
--

So... in this case, I think I'll try being nice one more time.

If that doesn't work, well, $300 for a 1W signal amplifier might be worthwhile.

 

[Clocker]

Oh this should be fun. Please keep us up-to-date. And skip the being nice routine...the guy is an ass-hole from the sound of it and he deserves what he gets.

C

 

[Mercutio]

The only down side - which I wasn't thinking of when I posted earlier, is that an amplified signal in either 2.4 or 5GHz range, might keep someone I don't want to aggravate from using his/her phone.

 

[sechs]

You should have gone with the printer message....

 

[Mercutio]

At this point, I think that if I had done that, he probably would've called the FBI or something.

 

[sechs]

And they would have laughed at him!

 

[ddrueding]

I'm trying to fuestimate exactly how much power it would take over how broad a range to smoke that baby monitor. I know it freq. hops, but by how much? Perhaps if you just added a massive amp to your 5Ghz equipment, the monitor would stay off the freq?

 

[sechs]

My impression is that the FCC frowns upon such things.

 

[Tea]

I'm astonished that the FCC allows the problem in the first place. Don't you guys have any radio spectrum laws? What gives?

 

[Mercutio]

The FCC is too busy prosecuting obscenity violations, creating radio monopolies and being run by a 30something who doesn't have internet access at home to do anything about interference in the extremely-short-range low-power 5GHz band.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, I did some checking, and it doesn't look like his Baby Monitor is the culprit. I saw one just like it this afternoon and it's a 2.4GHz variety.
Also, my "A" equipment works fine if I take it someplace else and use it.

This is a very curious thing.

 

[sechs]

I'm astonished that the FCC allows the problem in the first place. Don't you guys have any radio spectrum laws? What gives?

Yes, but wireless runs in the "do whatever the fuck you want" bands. There are limitations on power, but not on what you do or how you use it.

 

[e_dawg]

I was just talking about the ridiculousness of wireless frequency allocation with someone the other day. He was asking me about setting up a wireless network in his house. I explained the general components (router/AP and wireless PCI or PCMCIA) and the three 802.11 standards. When I got into the standards part, I told him to plan ahead as to what type of cordless phone he wants to use, because b and g run on 2.4 GHz, and a runs on 5 GHz. I said many current phones use 2.4 GHz, but they are just starting to transition to 5 GHz. He said "are you telling me they never thought of this before they were designing new phones or new networking equipment? That's kind of stupid, isn't it?" All I could say was, yep, I totally agree.

 

[Howell]

Wait for 802.16?