Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

mystery wireless connection

Nov 10, 2004 12:18AM PST

I was at my company office in a city other than my own and logged onto the wireless network there on a peer-to-peer connection.
However, on my return I have noticed that as soon as I log in to my notebook,irresp. of the location, I get the little icon on the RHS corner of my screen informing me that the default network has been detected.
The only place this doesn't happen in at my office since the notebook detects the office wireless connection.

I have netstumbler loaded and it too first detects the network but then disconnects soon after.

Any ideas why this could be happening ? How can I make out if my notebook is detecting someone elses network and how do I locate such a network if this be the case ? More importantly, how do I prevent such a network from being detected in the first place ?

Any and all advise welcome
S

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re: mystery wireless connection
Nov 10, 2004 12:32AM PST

"More importantly, how do I prevent such a network from being detected in the first place ?"

The various WiFi makers haven't agreed to supply drivers that have a checkbox "Only show these networks..."

Until then you get to live with it.

Bob

- Collapse -
Re: mystery wireless connection
Nov 10, 2004 2:54AM PST

I found a similar situation with my WiFi laptop. I had been to another person's house to help her set up some wireless equipment - Linksys in this case. The Linky equipment comes from the factory with "Linksys" as the default SSID, so we had to work with that long enough to get to the administration pages and change it to something more secure. However, my WinXP system "remembers" having been to an access point named "Linksys" in case it ever has to associate with it again. Back at home, there is no such access point, never was (I don't have any Linky WiFi stuff, but that's a different discussion), and none of my nearby neighbors either. But whenever I take down my primary WiFi network and put up a substitute (for testing and other reasons), the dialog boxes of the wireless zero configuration utility on my WinXP system always include opportunities to re-establish contact with that non-existent "Linksys" access point. I suppose I could do some down deep and dirty editing of the registry to find and delete that little devil, but it hardly seems worth the risk of turning a working system into a boat anchor.

dw

- Collapse -
(NT) Re: mystery wireless connection
Nov 10, 2004 6:06PM PST
- Collapse -
Re: mystery wireless connection
Nov 10, 2004 4:29PM PST

Thanks ! I guess i will have to live with it !