not too alternative...

i thought about puting this in the network and security section...but then i decided against it.

This is a security issue...My father is catching on to me. I'm starting to feel realyl jipped by this world, with a restricted licence past the age of 18, and few rights to fun. Apparently i'm not allowed to play games online like everyone else, because the only computer in this house allowed to have internet is the 500 mhz family computer running windows 98.

No i hate transferring files on cd too, its a waste of blanks, and now i'm down to 3. RW's arent fast enough

Basically my solution was to get myself a wireless card and upload/download my stuff in my room, where i'm strictly forbidden from the internet....for some odd reason.

This computer is the one with two hard drives, both leaps and bounds larger than any other around, and the only one that can even consider running the games i play.

Anyways, last night the modem found its way to being off. This means my father is catching on, the best i can tell. So, i need to step up the security.

First off, i need to hide the antenna in the back of my computer. thats a dead giveaway. could i possibly use a small wire to lead to the antenna? (hopefully without degrading conectivity, i'm getting only 40-50% signal, and i use it for heavy file transfer between computers on the LAN)

theres no way to get a cable to my room, i've tried. wireless card was my second and more expensive, idea.

Also, i need to make the router not give away the heavy traffc on the wireless....could i just crack it open and put some electical tape covering the front Wlink light? that should block out the light and make it look like i turned off the wireless alltogether...right?


now theres no way to make the modem stop blinking, could i jsut say its the router keeping the conenction on because thats what it does?

now i just have to hope he doesnt check these forums, or else i'm screwed...he will probably go back to dialup or something and i'll be forced to find another way to get broadband acess, i simply cant go back to fighting my sister for a 2kbs connection.

Phase one: "Thou shalt not blink"

Okay, so i stealthed my router. the WLAN light no longer blinks.
Incase anyone is wondering, these blasted linksys case thigns clip together on either side where the blue meets the black on the front feet. just pops off forward, but its good to know where it attatches.

Note: i reccomend turning off the power when you open your equipment...i dont, but i should.

Phase two: getting rid of the antenna in my room. Hm. Not only can i not think of a cool name for this phase, i'm not sure how i'm gonna doi it.

Well... not to sound like the no-fun guy, but why dont you confront your father about this? I just graduated from college and am living at hom with my parents, and my father was an avid 56k user. I told them I was going to order cable internet, and they said, "Fine, but you're paying for it".

So i got it installed, and put into my room. My room sits right outside our other computer room where my father uses his computer on the internet with 56k. One night, I was surfing around the internet at blinding speeds, and my father was surfing around on Ebay (he's an ebay junky), and he happened to look back at me surfing around at the speed of light. He walked into my room and said he was going to hook up the cable to his computer. Right off the bat, I said, "No, I pay for it, and you dont, so you can go ahead and use your 56k Earthlink connection".

He got all mad and wutnot and walked off in a huff.

Later on, I talked to him and said that if he contributed half of the cost of the cable bill, I would hook him up and network our computers. This turned out to be a great thing. Now I pay 28 bucks a month for my portion of the cable modem bill (including basic cable tv access) and he pays 20 for his internet hookup.

The point of this story is, why dont you confront your dad, and ask if you pay for half the bill, if you can get hooked up in your room. You are a competent individual, and should be able to have some adult rights. For **** sakes, you're 18. You're an adult. You can handle the internet. Just make sure you talk civily and controlled and dont let your anger get the best of you.

These would be better in the internet and networking section:
http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

dont worry about being no fun, but trust me...i've known him all my life, theres no way. First off, i cant afford to split the bill. the $20 radiator i just bought cleaned me out, i've been working for it all summer. (man i need a job)

Besides, theres just no way he would ever go for it. I have to admit, for a moment i thought you were him posting to get me to bring it up...(new account, i ran a search and found you post about doom3 a-lot, as far as i can tell video games are pacman in his mind)
If i said one word i'd get reemed like you wouldnt believe. i was yelled at for five minuits because i had a cable going up the stairs to run windows update in my room, and he saw it. No internet in the rooms, period.

Oh, and this isnt in the network section because its barely about networking. i need to hide something, "stealth" it if you were. Hardware modification that isnt usually required. How many people do you see stealthing their internet connection?! Alternative modification...but i DID consider putting it there.


i suppose i'll mess with having a wire come from the card to the antennae placede in a better location, heres hopin.

anyone have any other ideas?

Why not make a Pringles can Antenna & have it sit on your desk. Just make it so that he doesn't throw it away. A good way to ensure this is to make it look like the Hubbell space telescope or something. Actually that sounds like fun .

LoL

Sorry for giving you a scare =). I just find that direct confrontation is the best way with my father, being he's such a hard@ss. Figured it might work for you... but... i guess not.

In terms of the antennah... an antennah such as the one on the back of you comeputer jutting from the side of the PCI antennah card is in most simplist of forms a very thick wire. Most of the time, these can be removed in favor of adding a "Limp" antennah that looks more or less like a power line from your computer. They are about the thickness of your power cord, and would hang from the computer a bit. I'll have to look this up for you tonight. I know I saw information on replacing receiver antennahs somewhere.

In the meantime, you may want to try this... Go to your local hardware store/Home Depot/Lowes, and go to the plumbing department. They sell tubing of all sorts with different diameters. You may want to bring your wireless card with you, but find a tube that will fit snugly over the top of the wire to hang down off of your computer toward your powerstrip. This tubing can be painted black with your average can of black spraypaint, and will give that wire the appearance of a power cord.

Now... i'm not sure what your wireless card looks like, but the antennah on the back of my other computer's wireless receiver can spin upward or downward on the back of the card to accommodate it for different circumstances. If yours is similar, turn yours to point downward, attach the painted black tubing, and go wild on the internet.

This isnt exactly a stealth, but will alter the appearance of your computer. This may be enough to fool your father if he ever looked at it.

It's just chewing at me now... so if I might ask... why is your father so opposed to letting you have internet in your room? Is he afraid you're going to look up porn? Or download a ton of Warez? Or sell intelligence to Osama Bin Laden?

Sounds kind of wierd to me...

Why not get a USB wireless card and put it inside the case? If it works at the local library, why wont it work for you?

wont work foer me because i paid $40 for a wireless card i dont have a job. $ is tight.

I may try the pipe trick, but i'll probly jsut build a p13 under my bed to share the connection over my in-room lan. more on that in the internet & networking section.

oh, and i dunno why my dad is against me, he just is. no internet in the rooms....hell, we had dialup for 14 years. new things arent his...thing, i guess.

could you move your computer out of your room, have cable, and not have it messed with by sibbilings? How does the house have a cable connection if the main comp is on 56k? Dads work? I also like the tube trick, if you can pull it off, if you wanted to get really steallty, get an extra power cable and attatch the tube to the head and then plug that in. Also, you could just run the painted tube into the computer to sit. Say your jurry - rigged some connection because you didnt want to buy the proper adapter.

Edit: you could also consider doing this the slow way - get a job, this will show your dad that you are more responsable. Then aproach him about sharing the connection/bill, or you could get your own connection totally into the house (9 think this can be done) and see what he says about that.

if you have a PCI wireless card it dosent actually need the black antena just snap it off and it will still work. Unless he would notice the extra PCI card?

*edit* i thought a little bit more and that probable wouldent work in your case (i rememberd my friends was only about 10 feet away from the router)

What you need is one of the PCI cards that doesnt have the antena directly attached but rather on a wire so you can place it on your desk, or hide it.... if you need too.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=33-127-136&depa=0
That one is made by D-Link and it will allows 802.11a/b/g connections. You can find chaper ones for around $40 for just 802.11b

Also, if your house has a room like an office or study type room that isnt really used. Ask your father if you could put your system in there with the cable.. this way he could look in on you while you on the net, and you can still keep your system remotley private by locking the door and/or passwording the system

um...

USB??? why havent you considered that. Most mobos have the usb connector things On them you cna get like a Frontx kit off E-bay, hook the USB port to it, then hook the USB card to your case INSIDE the case and your all set... just an idea... it may be costly but in the end thats the most stealthy thing i could think of

How old are you? you seem a lttile scared of your father. which i find strange. maybe you should call child support?

He said he was 18 guys. He also said he has no income right now because of a lack of a job. I'm thinking his best bet for a quick fix is to go with my tube sheathing method. Very cheap, and should work in the end if laid in with th rest of the wires on his computer.

Hamspiced said:

um...

USB??? why havent you considered that. Most mobos have the usb connector things On them you cna get like a Frontx kit off E-bay, hook the USB port to it, then hook the USB card to your case INSIDE the case and your all set... just an idea... it may be costly but in the end thats the most stealthy thing i could think of

Click to expand...

Metal case with lots of electronics+wireless antenna inside=very bad signal degregation.

Maybe make a cover for the back of your rig. On top of fixing your problem, it might make things look a bit neater.

Bensa said:

Metal case with lots of electronics+wireless antenna inside=very bad signal degregation.

Click to expand...

Well in that case a USB Extention + Wireless USB Connector

look, i cant afford a usb card, period. No money. Every cent i had just went in to watercooling, which i havnt finished yet.
i have a card, but my dad is catching on. I'm finding hte modem off at night, i need to fix that...reconfiguring it every morning is such a pain.

And we dont have 56K, i dont know where you got that. we have DSL now...but we had dialup for 14 years...sicne i was 4, untill we moved here (about a month ago)

anyways, i think i've decided on bilding a network bidge to make a "wireless acess computer" somewhere that just bridges the wireless card with a regular card, which will connect to the hub in my room. (at any point i have up to 4 computers in here, so i have a LAN in my room.)

And to clear it up, i'm not scared of my father. i'm scared of what he will do if he catches me online in my room...like go back to dialup. *shudder*