Hints and Tips - There seems to be a good signal but my wifi connection drops or goes slow - 2
Is someone hacking your network?
If your access point is left open or uses WEP encryption and your wifi signal extends beyond the boundaries of your property then there is the possibility that someone else is using your network
It is trivial to connect to an open network - even by mistake - and on some occasions I have had to explicitly forbid my cellphone or computer from connecting to open networks.
It is also surprisingly easy to work out the network passcode for a Wifi network which only uses WEP security. Liveboxes normally have a security facility that allows a new computer to register with the Livebox only during a short time period which starts when the owner presses a button on the back. The Livebox stores the hardware address of the wifi adapter that registered and only allows machines on its internal address list to connect once the registration period has ended. A determined hacker could note the hardware address of your computer (a few seconds work) and - to add insult to injury - configure her PC's wireless adapter to have the same address (just a few more seconds work). Now so long as only one of the PCs is active everything will work fine - either you or the hacker will have unrestricted access to the wifi network (should I be specifying what I actually mean by "working fine" here?). If, however, both computers are active the results will be undefined and neither you nor hacker will have reliable network access
