Without getting into the details, can I permanently disable one wifi network that’s near my apt so it can’t be accessed by my home computer? Thanks
Not without some details. Are you trying to keep anyone who uses your machine from accessing your neighbor’s network, or is this a thing where your machine connects to it automatically and you want it to stop?
Also, what OS are you using? For the latter situation in Windows 7, open the list of networks in the wireless taskbar icon and right-click the network. Choose Properties and on the Connection tab, uncheck “Connect automatically when this network is in range.” I imagine the process is similar for other versions of Windows.
If you want to disable access to that network entirely from one machine… I haven’t a clue. Maybe ask your neighbor to secure it?
You might be able to do it by configuring the advanced properties of the network inappropriately - i.e. tell your OS that it’s encrypted using WEP or something it isn’t, rather than letting the OS determine it automatically - that way, the computer may see it and prompt for a password, but even if the correct password is entered, it won’t authenticate.
But if you’re doing this to thwart another user (i.e. offspring), and that user has administrative privilege, they could potentially discover and undo the above change.
OS X10.9. Yeah, I want to make it impossible for someone to use this network from my computer.
Some particular person? Or anyone? In the former case you’re looking at it from the wrong end: you should block them at the far end.
n/m - didn’t see that you were using OSX
If it’s a desktop computer you may be able to unscrew the wifi antenna which may limit it’s ability to connect to a far off wifi network but your home network may be close enough.
I am pretty curious about WHY anyone would ask this question. The only reason I can think of for wanting to do this, is to prevent someone else - a family member? - from downloading stuff at your neighbour’s expense. If that’s the case, then surely it would be better to take more control of the computer’s use, and possibly to instill some sense of right and wrong into the person concerned. Stealing bandwidth is - well - stealing.
Well, I have a desktop for home use, the laptop is for roadwork, since there’s only one unsecured network in range, I was hoping there was a way to to make it inaccessible, preferably a method not easily undone.
Could you knock on their door and ask them to secure their network? Might be the easiest solution.
From what I can tell there is no way in OSX to blacklist an SSID (access point). You can only take it off the preferred networks list, which can be easily undone.
Are you trying to do this for the laptop and desktop?
Like kanicbird said, can you run a wired connection to the desktop and just disable the wireless adapter? Just remove the wifi driver…probably stop most people from using it.
Seems like Airport has a feature that requires an admin password to change wifi networks. As long as your access point has the strongest signal at boot this should work as well.
the anti-social way would be to eat their bandwidth until they blocked you…a couple days of heavy torrenting would probably work
good luck
In System Prefs / Network, there are options “Ask to join new networks”, and under Wi-Fi, “Require administrator authorization to… change networks” etc.
If you can limit this person to a non-administrator account, then I think that might give you enough to prevent them from joining networks other than those you’ve added as an admin.
Could be many reasons, Perhaps a child would use his/her friends wifi who lives across the street to bypass parental restrictions?
I would advise against using any free or unsecured AP, ever. Never, ever, ever.
That’s why I keep my grandfathered unlimited data plan for my phone. I rarely go over 2 GB, but, if I travel I do and I never use the “free” WiFi from any place.
One approach would be to buy a cheap WiFi router and assign it to the same channel as the one you want to block. Being closer it would hopefully block out the farther one. Don’t bother plugging it into the Internet or anything except for setup. You could even give it the same network name as the other one. Just check from time to time to see if the other one has had its channel changed.
That would be a waste of time, because it won’t work. WiFi is designed to allow multiple SSIDs on the same channel.
But as noted, changing the network name (SSDID) to the same as the other network would “confuse things”. Adding a dummy device that just spews packets back and forth on that network would also make things harder. (But I think the FCC frowns on deliberate useless radio traffic, even on unlicensed bands.)
This might work, since IIRC multiple Access Points with the same SSID, the computer typically connects to the closer (stronger) one.
They probably haven’t changed the default password on their router. Connect to it, log in as administrator and either disable or password protect wifi. Either they are so clueless that they’ll never notice, or they’ll freak out and set up security themselves because they’ve been “hacked”.
Or possibly blacklist your MAC address.
If they don’t notice, it would only be because they never use it. Both options would make any computers set up to use that access point not work.