I keep getting kicked off my wifi by someone in my house/dorm! is there any way i can prevent this?

[adityasur1]

Someone is blocking my devices from connecting to our wifi router. . please tell me how i can prevent this?

 

[McHenryB]

How do you know that "someone" is doing this? Perhaps it's just a misconfiguration of the router, your device, or another device.

But if you are sure that it is a deliberate action by an individual then you must have some idea of who it is. Talk to them.

 

[adityasur1]

How do you know that "someone" is doing this? Perhaps it's just a misconfiguration of the router, your device, or another device.

But if you are sure that it is a deliberate action by an individual then you must have some idea of who it is. Talk to them.

I am sure someone is doing this and he will not admit it. Is there any way i can prevent him from doing this?
i checked , there is no mis configuration all other devices are working fine except my lappy which works perfectly everywhere else

 

[mcnumpty23]

assuming in a dorm there would be a few people connecting they would need to know which devices are yours

but trying to stop them de-authenticating you if thats what is happening is near impossible

look for some one who knows linux as its usually the tool of choice rather than windows

 

[USAFRet]

To 'prevent', you'd have to know 'how'.

What does it show in the router settings?

 

[adityasur1]

assuming in a dorm there would be a few people connecting they would need to know which devices are yours

but trying to stop them de-authenticating you if thats what is happening is near impossible

look for some one who knows linux as its usually the tool of choice rather than windows

can i change my mac address ? and will that help if i do?

 

[USAFRet]

assuming in a dorm there would be a few people connecting they would need to know which devices are yours

but trying to stop them de-authenticating you if thats what is happening is near impossible

look for some one who knows linux as its usually the tool of choice rather than windows

can i change my mac address ? and will that help if i do?

MAC address is but one method of kicking a particular device off the router. There are others.

 

[adityasur1]

To 'prevent', you'd have to know 'how'.

What does it show in the router settings?

it keeps on saying 'unable to connect to wifi' !!
im sorry but what settings in the router are you talking about?

 

[USAFRet]

To 'prevent', you'd have to know 'how'.

What does it show in the router settings?

it keeps on saying 'unable to connect to wifi' !!
im sorry but what settings in the router are you talking about?

MAC address filtering, IP address filtering, parental controls.
You need to log on to the router, via an ethernet cable, and look at the settings.

 

[adityasur1]

assuming in a dorm there would be a few people connecting they would need to know which devices are yours

but trying to stop them de-authenticating you if thats what is happening is near impossible

look for some one who knows linux as its usually the tool of choice rather than windows

can i change my mac address ? and will that help if i do?

MAC address is but one method of kicking a particular device off the router. There are others.

what are the other methods? and how can i figure out what he's done? and is it possible to change my mac address
I don't know anyone who knows linux !

 

[USAFRet]

The above only counts if someone is actually doing it on purpose.

 

[mcnumpty23]

unable to connect to wifi could be for a number of reasons not necessarily that some one is denying you access

 

[adityasur1]

To 'prevent', you'd have to know 'how'.

What does it show in the router settings?

it keeps on saying 'unable to connect to wifi' !!
im sorry but what settings in the router are you talking about?

MAC address filtering, IP address filtering, parental controls.
You need to log on to the router, via an ethernet cable, and look at the settings.

so you're saying that if i change my mac address I can connect to the router again ?if some one has kicked me off?

 

[adityasur1]

To 'prevent', you'd have to know 'how'.

What does it show in the router settings?

it keeps on saying 'unable to connect to wifi' !!
im sorry but what settings in the router are you talking about?

MAC address filtering, IP address filtering, parental controls.
You need to log on to the router, via an ethernet cable, and look at the settings.

if i change my mac address I can connect to the router again ?if some one has kicked me off?

 

[adityasur1]

unable to connect to wifi could be for a number of reasons not necessarily that some one is denying you access

all other device are working fine only mine is not if i change my mac address will it help ?

 

[USAFRet]

To 'prevent', you'd have to know 'how'.

What does it show in the router settings?

it keeps on saying 'unable to connect to wifi' !!
im sorry but what settings in the router are you talking about?

MAC address filtering, IP address filtering, parental controls.
You need to log on to the router, via an ethernet cable, and look at the settings.

so you're saying that if i change my mac address I can connect to the router again ?if some one has kicked me off?

No, we're saying that you need to determine how and why you cannot connect.

 

[mcnumpty23]

changing mac address is simple in linux not so simple in windows

even if you can change mac address its going to be a temporary fix as soon as they know your new mac address you will get blocked again

think you need to speak to the it department or network administrator etc

 

[mcnumpty23]

silly question---but how are you connected to the net now?

 

[Dark antz1]

The person in your dorm is probably using an ARP attack to spoof your MAC address and disassociate it from your IP address and hence break your connection.
The easiest way to stop this is having a program that defends against ARP scans i.e. when the attack program scans your LAN for all devices the defender doesn't respond to ARP request. Hence, they don't get your MAC and IP.

ESET smart security has the option to do this. Once installed go to setup --> advanced personal firewall setup --> network --> IDS & advanced options --> [uncheck] Allow response to ARP requests.
For this to take effect you will have to change your network to categorisation to 'Public'. Windows usually asks you this when you connect to a network for the first time.

 

[USAFRet]

Have you discovered how and why this may be happening?

 

[mcnumpty23]

do you have physical access to the router?

if so connect by Ethernet cable

if that works your mac address isnt blocked

accusing people of blocking your internet if they arent isnt going to win you any popularity contests

 

[Dark antz1]

Its obvious why hes getting kicked off. Probably because he's torrenting and hogging all the bandwidth. One of the other kids has googled how to stop him. They have taken a simple program and then ARP spoofed him off the network.

 

[USAFRet]

Its obvious why hes getting kicked off. Probably because he's torrenting and hogging all the bandwidth. One of the other kids has googled how to stop him. They have taken a simple program and then ARP spoofed him off the network.

No, it's not obvious. A possibility, yes. But from what we've seen, nothing definitive.

 

[McHenryB]

do you have physical access to the router?

if so connect by Ethernet cable

if that works your mac address isnt blocked

That's not true. The ethernet connection will have a different MAC address to the wireless one.

Changing the MAC address is worth a try (though it wouldn't be effective for long against a determined attacker); it's very easy to do in Windows: http://www.howtogeek.com/192173/how-and-why-to-change-your-mac-address-on-windows-linux-and-mac/

If you really have strong evidence that a particular person is doing this then you should report them to the College authorities; this is the only guaranteed way to solve the problem. Messing with their network is probably an offence which would lead to the perpetrator being expelled from the College, so - to be fair - you should warn them that you are going to take this course of action and give them one final chance to mend their ways.

 

[Dark antz1]

Its obvious why hes getting kicked off. Probably because he's torrenting and hogging all the bandwidth. One of the other kids has googled how to stop him. They have taken a simple program and then ARP spoofed him off the network.

No, it's not obvious. A possibility, yes. But from what we've seen, nothing definitive.

I have to disagree knowing a lot of kids this has happened to. If this is a dorm they will not have access to router settings. As he is being specifically targeted then the only way to do it is an application-level DoS attack. Most popular and accessible is the ARP protocol attack because it doesn't choke the network. Unless he is sharing his dorm with people from LOLsec [insert other generic hacker group] ^^ this is the most probable cause.

Two main reason why him specifically, hogging bandwidth through torrenting, someone just doesn't like him and is just trolling. While the latter is possible, bandwidth hog is the more probable cause
I know I am assuming all of this but its what I would put my money on.