Using your neighbor's WIFI for a "spare" un-linked backup account....

[Donna]

If you happen to live in the city, or even a reasonably populated area, there are some pretty nice long-range WIFI boosters on Ebay that have about a mile of line-of-sight range that can grab neighbor's non-password-protected WIFI, especially now since most Verizon, Comcast, etc... cable and DSL modems come with built-in wifi right in the modem for household laptops and so on... a lot of people probably dont even realize their modems are beaming out wifi, and dont password protect it. I've found that for every 20 signals you can reach with one of those, 2 or 3 are usually NOT password protected and you can go online off of that connection.

What are the disadvantages of using that hooked up to a computer to have a "backup" account that's active and not linked to my regular account? I do have to connect to different signal sources (daily) but I always use the same computer which I'm sure is a good thing, but what about the different IP's and so on? I'd appreciate some good/bad points on this, from a set of fresh eyes...

[pod]

Originally Posted by Donna

What are the disadvantages ...

Problem with borrowing an IP is you have no idea what is going on on that IP. There could very easily be someone on it that uses ebay and/or paypal

So you can go to all the trouble to set everything up just to have it go down when you get some sales. Its tempting for sure. Another IP just hanging out there... but the complete lack of control is too risky.

[stickmade]

I bought the alfa networks awus036s long rangs wifi receiver,, with this and backtrack4 i was able to crack many of my neighbors wifi's,,,

What i usually do is pic a wifi,, for each account, and stick with to it.

If you don't keep track of which wifi's you are connecting to each account & what ip's you are getting,, then you will end up getting your accounts linked

I find that using other peoples is great but when they turn their wifi off,, or they themselfs are on it,, it slows down

Also they could use ebay aswell & could even be banned, but its the risk you take

Hope i have shed some light

[pod]

Originally Posted by stickmade

could even be banned, but its the risk you take

Its too high a risk just for some free internet. Glad you have not been dinged yet, but do you really want to leave $100s or even $1000s up to chance?

Internet is costly, but not so much so you need to risk accounts over it.

There are so many other options that you can control. Tethering, second cable ISP or second DSL or internet sticks... I wont risk an account I collect money into every day to save 30 or 40 bucks....

[GreenBean]

You asked for 'fresh eyes'........

You do not know the ecommerce history of the neighbor. What tricks are they playing?
You run the risk of compromising the account for you AND the neighbor.
You live in the USA and there are many many many options that do not involve 'free' WIFI.
To be stealth you need to be in control of ALL your activities.
If money is that tight you cant afford to pay for t'internet, how will you pay ebay fees?