I have a wee issue to sort out. At the place im renting a room one of the home owner's son is bunking off school and his courses so his old man wants to block him from accessing the internet. He has a habit of changing the wireless passwords all the time as well (4 times this week) without telling anyone...which is infuriating when im in the middle of working.
The home network is running on an old Netgear N600 Modem/Router.
This thing doesnt support blocking devices by MAC addy as far as google has told me, which was my first plan.. Firm ware is just too old apparently. So far ive managed to change the router admin password and both wireless bands. This worked for about 4 hours until we all fell asleep for the night, when the little blighter factory reset the N600. Now the admin access was set back to admin/password, in he went and changed the all the logins just like I did.
I would factory reset it like he did but i dont know the ISP account details for the house so id just be killing the internet for the whole house - plus he would do the same thing again in a nice little cycle of resets.
For the moment all his ethernet cables and the wireless antenna for his PC have been taken but he still gets on his phone and tablet. For some reason taking these from him are out of the question.
Any bright ideas would be appreciated, being able to reflash the default 'factory' settings with a username and password only I knew would be ideal...
Step 1 is going to be to physically secure the devices. Without doing that nothing you do is going to be effective.
After that put a get a better router and firewall him off or put PFSense between the WAN and that router (turn on AP mode on it to turn off its routing capabilities) and firewall him off the internet.
The first part is a bit confusing but it seems like your complaint is with the owner. If it is your internet, he is stealing your services. So tell the owner that: * The internet is critical to you business * low bandwidth and outages are impacts your work * and his son is blocking you and causing bandwidth issues due to the fact that he is downloading copious amounts of porn.
First thing first. You need to talk to the owner and have the AP moved to a secure location. Then have him contact the ISP and see if they can replace the router with a newer one or get a new router and connect it to the old one and disable wi fi on it.
Yep so far there's a new router that has device by device security baked in, and we are figuring out some kind of strong box to keep it in. Going to rig up a spare 120mm fan to the box for airflow. Seriously considering liberating the sata cables from his case.
If your going to ventilate the box, make sure the holes are small enough so he cannot doing anything with that exploit.
Make sure it's not metal though, cause that can heavily interfere with the wireless signal of the router, also, how are you going to secure the cables?
Make sure he cannot clone the mac addresses, there are easy tools out there that can do that, I did it for a while...don't ask. All in all, if it's your network, then explain to the occupants the do's and dont's.
Probably not that lucky to use the DD-WRT... i got one right here and loved playing with it (years ago). Now it just sitting here waiting for a fun little job.
My best advise... sorry it wont be that technical. Talk to the boy... be friendly to him. Gain some of his respect and MAKE A DEAL.
People.... in IT and ICT business many many just dont look into each others eyes... which is totally wrong. Wendell and Ryan are one of the few exceptions.. i expect MORE from their fanbase! That i the first to mention making a DEAL with this young lad......
This is going to sound dumb, and way out there ( i mean its never heard of), but.. Have his dad take his computers away for breaking the house rules.
Seriously.. parenting.
All these suggestions and things you've tried to block the internet behind his back. Just take away his computers if he isn't following his parents rules.
-- Go one further and throw the book at him (or the fear of) to whatever the computer misuse act is in New Zealand. Unauthorized access is a crime.
the more you try to secure your network, the more he will try to break it. The arms race will just escalate until one of the three outcomes will occur.
Time; your lease is up and you get the hell out of there.
You make peace with each other and reach an understanding.
There is no making deals with this kid, hes off the rails just learning about teenage rebellion. Its not about not trying, the kid fully understands the BS hes up to - there is no going behind is back. Hes completely aware hes not supposed to be online and his dad wants him blocked. For whatever reason his old man doesn't want to just remove the devices from his possession. Lordy knows why but im not his dad haha
Other then disconnects when he jacks the password to the wireless the place is wicked cool to live in, and he gives me the login straight away so its not like im super inconvenienced. Its just super annoying so im more then willing to explore any options for his old man to block the little pillock out.
Basically seems theres no way to block someone access to a home network that has physical access to the box so for those interested in the drama:
-Next time the boy is out of the house im going to crack his case open and take his wireless PCI card. His ethernet cables are being cut by his dad everytime they appear so hes stopped using them.
-A metal box for the router is going to be sorted out. Holes for the antenna and cables smacked in the back and a big hole on top for the vent fan. AFAIK wireless signal is broadcast and received by the antennae (please correct me if im an idiot) so signal strength should be fine. Factory button is going to be silicone and superglued over so even if he gets clever trying to get in one of the holes its going to be a mission to get it to work.
-I havent let him see what the new router looks like, and have changed the wireless network names to remove the branding...i dont think theres a way once its in the box for him to figure out what it is and thus what the generic passwords will be.
The impressive thing is all this wee wizards computer knowledge comes from school, while i had to teach myself growing up and learn how to do cursive at school networking is something thats taught in highschool here in NZ. If only he could apply himself to his courses or getting a job!
Thanks all for the suggestions and info, already made my life easier!
