need to find the password for my wireless net

pogo mudder

I've just got back home from uni, and i need to hook my laptop up to the wireless net in my house. I'm currently on my dads computer which is connected to said wireless connection. What i need to know is how can i locate the password that this computer is using to connect to our wireless connection so i can type it in on my laptop,
I asked my dad what the password was but he just stared blankly and seems to have no recolection of what i'm talking about -.-

tl'dr: how do you find out connection passwords to the connections you're currently connected to

grungebox

If it's WEP, I think the code to decrypt the password is freely available. For WPA/WPA2 I think you might be in more dire straits.

The easiest solution is to manually reset your router. Just go to the router and find the reset switch. Press it for maybe 10-15 seconds. To set a new password, I'd hunt down the manual for your router.

Strictly speaking, I actually think it's a federal crime to "hack" into any WiFi network, regardless if it's yours or not.

Burtletoy

What kind of router is it?

This generally gets you to your router http://192.168.1.1/ from there, if your dad didn't change anything, the login and password are admin/admin or admin/password for 90% of the routers you can find. Once you get into that you can set the password/passcode to anything of your choice.

Chalkbot

You should be able to connect to the router from your dad's laptop and change the password, then you'll know what it is.

To do that, just type http://192.168.1.1 into your address bar to get to your router settings.

Of course it could be a little different depending on the model of the router. Other popular ones are:
http://192.168.0.1
http://192.168.2.1

If NONE of those work, you can look it up on your dad's computer click Start>Run Type cmd and hit enter, then at the command prompt type ipconfig and hit enter. That will list a bunch of stuff, but the only thing you care about is Default Gateway, which is the router ip address. Type that in your address bar and you should be brought to the router login screen.

You might have to log in to change stuff, and there may or may not be a password required. Try clicking log in first, many of these by default have no password (And it sounds as if your dad didn't really mess with it). If that doesn't work, the password admin works on about 50% of the routers you run across. If THAT doesn't work, google the default password for the router model you have.

Now you should be in and able to reset the password.

Or you can just press the reset button on your router (probably with a ball-point pen) and reset all the settings to factory defaults, which means it probably won't require a password anymore.

Phew

Burtletoy

You spend way more time typing what I said.

:P

Edit: and went more in depth, but "Meh".

PeregrineFalcon

Here you go.

Should work for WEP/WPA, don't know about WPA2.

Trentus

If you have access to a machine that has the network passphrase you should be able to grab it off it. Assuming your dad's lappy is a windows machine, grab Cain and install it on his machine. Open it up, and under the Decoders tab, there should be a tree of cached passwords. You should be able to select the Wireless Passwords option from the tree which will reveal to you the password from your dad's machine.

It's been a while since I've had to do it, but I don't think I've left anything out. If you have trouble with it let me know and either someone else will have the answer or I'll boot into windows and go through the process.

japan

It's probably worth mentioning that if you have a combined modem/router, you'll have to set the connection up again if you reset it.

KalTorak

If your Dad's computer is a Mac, there's a chance it'll have saved the password in Keychain. Now, to get into Keychain he'll have to type his computer user password, but chances are better that he'll know what that is.