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Rewiring my cable internet
Drez
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi, so I have Verizon FIOS. On Friday, I’m going to be rewiring it to prevent one of my roommates from using it.
The current setup is as follows:
Our Verizon ONT (Optical Network Terminal) box is in the electrical room. Our router is also in the electrical room, connected to the ONT box via CAT5. The router is then connected to a range extender in my apartment via coax cable.
It’s set up this way because I recently upgraded to gigabit service, which cannot be delivered directly from the ONT box to the router via coax, only CAT5+ and my apartment building is only wired for coax into each unit. But you can get higher speeds by doing the cockamamie wiring I described above. I get about 400-450 Mbps this way. The range extender has the same SSID as our WiFi. Oh and I’ve disabled the WiFi on the router itself (via its settings), making the range extender the only primary access point in the apartment.
Anywho, I want to cut my roommate off come the 1st. Right now, the range extender is in the common area. I want to extend the coax wire to my room and move the extender there. Residents are not able to access the electrical room, so the actual router and ONT box are not physically reachable. I think if I do the following:
- Remove the range extender from the roommate’s physical reach
- Change the WiFi password
- Change the router admin password
I should be able to prevent my roommate from using it anymore, right? He won’t be able to physically plug into it, he won’t be able to physically reset or reboot it? And he won’t be able to log into it or connect to it remotely.
Should I change the SSID?
Will he conceivably be able to get in or reset it any other way? The cable is in my name so he wont be able to call Verizon to have it reset.
I am just trying to cover all my bases. I’d rather not have the router swapped out or to change the SSID unless absolutely necessary.
Now for extending the coax, do I need to be worried about the type of cable I get? And also I can probably get by with just a standard female-to-female coax connector rather than a splitter with resistance ratings/etc., right?
The current setup is as follows:
Our Verizon ONT (Optical Network Terminal) box is in the electrical room. Our router is also in the electrical room, connected to the ONT box via CAT5. The router is then connected to a range extender in my apartment via coax cable.
It’s set up this way because I recently upgraded to gigabit service, which cannot be delivered directly from the ONT box to the router via coax, only CAT5+ and my apartment building is only wired for coax into each unit. But you can get higher speeds by doing the cockamamie wiring I described above. I get about 400-450 Mbps this way. The range extender has the same SSID as our WiFi. Oh and I’ve disabled the WiFi on the router itself (via its settings), making the range extender the only primary access point in the apartment.
Anywho, I want to cut my roommate off come the 1st. Right now, the range extender is in the common area. I want to extend the coax wire to my room and move the extender there. Residents are not able to access the electrical room, so the actual router and ONT box are not physically reachable. I think if I do the following:
- Remove the range extender from the roommate’s physical reach
- Change the WiFi password
- Change the router admin password
I should be able to prevent my roommate from using it anymore, right? He won’t be able to physically plug into it, he won’t be able to physically reset or reboot it? And he won’t be able to log into it or connect to it remotely.
Should I change the SSID?
Will he conceivably be able to get in or reset it any other way? The cable is in my name so he wont be able to call Verizon to have it reset.
I am just trying to cover all my bases. I’d rather not have the router swapped out or to change the SSID unless absolutely necessary.
Now for extending the coax, do I need to be worried about the type of cable I get? And also I can probably get by with just a standard female-to-female coax connector rather than a splitter with resistance ratings/etc., right?
Switch: SW-7690-2320-9238Steam/PSN/Xbox: Drezdar
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Make sure the router and modem are in areas he can't get physical access to it. There's a hard reset on those. Change the password on the router, the modem and the wifi.
Hide the SSID and use mac address filtering. Meaning you have to know what the ssid is to access it, it won't just pop up and your mac address is whitelisted. It's kind of a bitch to add everyone's device, but it's pretty effective.
Any join in the coax is going to degrade signal some. If it result in a meaningful reduction in speed isn't something I'd know but it's certainly possible.
Changing the SSID is probably a good idea really. As would disabling broadcast of the SSID, though obviously those are increasing levels of pain in the ass switch over stuff. If you really really really want to avoid changing the SSID you should be able to use the web interface on your router and get a list of wireless devices connected to the network. You and not horrible roommate could work out what is what and then only white list those devices by filtering MAC addresses.
If you go that route I'd make a note a week later to check back in and see what is on the network after you change stuff around.
Oh, also make damn sure that the router isn't using a default password setting.
Correct, it’s him.
And yes. It’s going to go in my bedroom. He could enter my room but I have a security camera so I would actually love it if he invaded my space so I could record
On hiding the SSID, I want to avoid irritating myself. I have a lot of devices so I think I may change it (along with the password, of course) but unless that doesn’t seem adequate I don’t think I will hide it.
I do, but he has yet to ever enter my bedroom. If he does so now, it’ll only help my ejection case against him.
Thanks. It currently is but I can change that and the default won’t work anymore, right? If I change the default WiFi and default admin password, he shouldn’t be able to get in, right?
He should not be able to get in, if you change the SSID on top of it the systems he has won't even try to reconnect.
That being said physical access is all access and running an ethernet cable is going to be this guy's easiest route to your internets. Port security is a good idea, your Mac whitelist will most likely do the trick, but if he's determined and knowledgable this won't stop him as all he'd need to do is spoof the mac of something he knows is on the white list (more complicated than I make it sound but not really hard...)
You might want to place the router and modem in a secure networking box.
He’s a dumbass.
He might have some friends that can advise him but I’d honestly rather monitor devices on the network (which I’ve actually already been doing).
I know which ones are his for the most part.
So he would have two physical options:
1) Remove my coax extender and add his own coax splitter and run something into his room which would be obvious and I would then react to accordingly.
2) Enter my room and run something from my room.
Neither is likely to happen but I would almost enjoy it if he tried to do either for various reasons.
Can you post the model of whatever repeater type thing you have attached to the coax in your apartment? Then we can see what it's doing and answer that question for sure.
My gut feeling is no, the worst he could do by attaching some new device is break the internet for everyone as the router no longer knows who it's talking to.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
If the landlord will allow it of course!
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Don't hide SSID broadcasting. It actually reduces overall device security.
yea I feel like this would be the most effective, that way its not obvious that you cut him off and you can mess with his head a bit
Physical layer was never my strong point, but it might be possible, but probably not without him either
1 obviously breaking it as vowels said
2 getting his own modem and account ( might depend on wiring )
3 getting his another modem authorized on your account, which would involve him lying to your ISP, which works in your favor.
I probably wouldn't even try to figure it out unless there are quick connectors or physical switches/cat4(5) you can disconnect to figure out what goes where.
I don't think you have to worry about someone unemployed going out and buying their own modem/router. I would be more concerned with retaliation, going by previous threads the guy seems like he's unstable.