Setting up wireless network in a dorm

[mlts22]

I know you're not asking for this kind of advice, but I'm beginning my sophomore year, so I know how things like this work.

Read your housing contract.

Along with it saying no routers, there is most likely a clause in there that says they have the right to enter your room if they feel that you are violating a policy or that there is an emergency situation. Some schools go as far as to have "fire drills" at unexpected times so they can search your room. (Fire drill = emergency situation) They do it at like 3:00 AM so that you are not thinking about hiding stuff and just want to get out. They will go in your room and if it is in plain sight, they can confiscate it or document it or whatever they do at your school. So if you decide to follow pismobrat's advice, keep in mind that you need to physically hide the router well, along with the security. Otherwise you're opening yourself up to other issues, then they'll take your router AND your beer.

Posted from my personal WiFi in my dorm room since my university provides wifi and allows personal routers

Cisco sells equipment that can detect the exact location of a wireless router in a building. Direction finding these days uses phasing of radio waves, not triangulation, so the days of walking around with a big piece of machine with big antennas trying to get locks on a signal are past. There are even offerings that will pinpoint where an AP is in a building in seconds of the AP being turned on, so someone turning the AP on for 2-3 minutes then off, it will still be noted.

People here are not trying to be self-righteous on this thread. A lot of us know colleges who have not just cut network access, but have actively expelled people for this stuff.

I have seen a lot of colleges getting tired of the cat and mouse game and enabling NAC. This does two things: It means that even if a machine is able to get on the network segment, it won't be able to get a connection unless it is authorized and has software installed and running. The second part is that the software that the NAC controller checks is a policy to deny packet routing/forwarding so people can't use a legit PC as a gateway for other machines.

Best of all worlds? If the college would allow not just wireless, but two segments, one for guests that has no access to anything but the external Internet, and one for the students. However, with the RIAA and MPAA successfully getting regulation passed that forces colleges to actively go against P2P (or else get all public funding cut which means no student loans), one will be seeing more and more restrictions in colleges.

 

[Les Kern]

I'm really confused. I went back read the original post, and I'm pretty sure it asked for support in setting up a wireless network in a dorm. I didn't see anything asking about the moral implications of any such set up.

I hope you managed to get your wireless network up mate.

So if I asked for the best way to poison the pope, you'd actually volunteer a way if you knew how without calling me on the morality of it? Moral and ethical standards don't have degrees of seriousness, nor do laws. Rules say no router = so it's wrong. Law says no poisoning the pope = it's wrong as well. The punishment will fit the crime:
Get a router = get expelled
Poison the pope = life in prison
If this guy sets up a router, he will eventually get what he deserves. We are merely trying to keep him from ruining part of his life for something so damned unimportant.

 

[mlts22]

So if I asked for the best way to poison the pope, you'd actually volunteer a way if you knew how without calling me on the morality of it? Moral and ethical standards don't have degrees of seriousness, nor do laws. Rules say no router = so it's wrong. Law says no poisoning the pope = it's wrong as well. The punishment will fit the crime:
Get a router = get expelled
Poison the pope = life in prison
If this guy sets up a router, he will eventually get what he deserves. We are merely trying to keep him from ruining part of his life for something so damned unimportant.

I would say it is a bit of hyperbole here to compare assassination of a head of state to someone wanting a rogue AP. However, there are plenty of other places the OP can go for his network fix. Worst case, if he really wants unfettered access not connected to the university network, he can get a laptop modem or Rover Puck and have that in the dorm room.

 

[windowsblowsass]

Thank you very much for your instructions. Is there anything else I can do to hide it even more?

I was reading on another forum (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/833193/)

and they go much more in depth about the security precautions. Is this something I should also try to take into account? Would if help in making my router less noticeable?


How do I use my iPhone with tethering? I am grandfathered into the old data plan and I am definitely not giving that up. Should I jailbreak or something?

OK, assuming your school worked like mine did (PSU) they probably require you to register the MAC address etc, of your computer for it to work. The best solution I found when I lived in the dorms was to register your routers information as your computer. Then your router will work with the network fine. simply set up your router as normal and you will have wifi. In all likelihood a college network with thousands of students and thousands of connections wont really give a **** if you have your own router. They will not track you down and kick you out of school, just secure it set it so it isnt visible and you are good to go. Honestly you dont really need to even make it invisible but if it will help you with peace of mind go ahead.

 

[jhewes]

Wireless in dorm

First, I am NOT condoning that you violate the terms of your housing contract or make life difficult for the IT folks at your college. In fact I advise against it.

That said, I just set up a wireless router for someone at Evangel University in Springfield Mo. They do allow wireless routers and seem to have very good security - everyone must first register their machine via direct connection to the university network and you cannot access the first time without typing in your user name and password.

My first suggestion is that have a conversation with the IT folks at your college and make friends with them, and ask them why they do not allow wireless routers, and tell them that other universities do allow wireless routers in the dorm rooms. Work to change the rules rather than break them. Suggest that they talk to other colleges and universities to see how they maintain security while allowing wireless devices in the dorm rooms.

THAT said, depending on the security of the network, you may need to log in your laptop to the college network first, using the LAN cable attached to the port in your room. Once you do that, you could just follow the step-by-step instructions with your router. That's what I did when I set up the router in the dorm room at Evangel.

 

[alfmil]

Y

 

[nettech]

Hey guys,

I am a freshman and I think its ludicrous how we pay so much money and they don't even give us wireless in the dorms. I had a netgear wireless router hanging around at home so I brought it to college and want to set it up.

I am a noob at this and barely understand all the technical jargon, but I will try to follow along as best I can.

The school (obviously) has a policy stating no routers are allowed, but I would want to a) make the network invisible, b) make it secure, and c) hide it in any other way possible that anyone can think of.

I'm not sure of the exact model of the router as I am not right next to the router at the moment, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling now.

Also, I would be plugging it into the University's ethernet connection box in my room (if that changes anything).

Thanks guys!

Congrats, you actually made me sign up for an account on here!

I was a network technician (net tech) where I went to school for 4.5 years. Here is WHY we do NOT want you to have a router attached to our network (wired or wireless).

The main reason is this:

Most routers have DHCP turned on by default. Who knows where the official DHCP server is. But regardless rooms around you and any that are closer to you than the DHCP server WILL get an IP address from your router. Either one of two things will then happen. Either you setup your router in such away that it works for you but not for others outside and we get lots of help tickets saying "help my internet is broke it was working 2 hours ago" or you set it up properly for it to work for everyone and all traffic goes through yor router and we get a lot of "hey my internet suddenly slowed down, and your webpage said I went over the limit and I am rate limited.. but I didn't download all that".... {we had a rate limiting system that slowed you down depending on how much you downloaded in a rolling 24 hour window}

And trust me we don't need to come looking for you when this happens, when you see an influx of help tickets from the same dorm, it's either our equipment is broken or this.. the latter more than likely since none of the fulltime staff got paged about our equipment broken and the status page said our equipment was fine. Take all of 2 minutes without even going to one of the rooms to find out the mac address of the router and which room you're in (yes most networks have a setup with router switch port goes to which room... and from there its easy to find stuff based on the logs and the nice interface the net ops set up for us to use ) We'd just reprimand you, warn you that if you do hook it up again, your network access would be disabled (takes all of 2 seconds ) and you'd have to meet with someone for disciplinary action, and yes it goes on your "housing record file" not your univ. file.

But that reason is frivolous compared to this reason.. i'm sure you'll secure your wireless network, but we all know that can be hacked, you can give someone the password... but guess what... someone does something on YOUR wireless network that gets them in trouble, it WILL get traced back to YOUR room.. and you or your roommate will be in trouble. Unless of course you keep logs of who owns all mac addresses that connects to your wireless router and blah blah blah... cause most of you'll that set up wireless routers don't do that... and you give out your password to all your friends around you...

And think about this: if everyone in your dorm wanted wireless....there are only 11 channels... want your wifi going out when someone is on their cordless phone or using their microwave?

So ya, go ahead, set up a wireless network... maybe you'll be smart enough to not get caught and get in trouble... maybe you wouldn't and you'll just provide someone with an additional 30-45 minutes to put on their time card for that week

But it's simple as get a 50ft network cable and just let it drag around your room...

at least i know you're not going to my alma mater... cause i know they started providing wifi in the dorms a few year ago, couple years after i left in 2005...

Oh and if they are walking around your dorm looking for SOMETHING ELSE using one of those fluke devices... you will get discovered!

Have fun I rather a wired cable... Heck I just had to setup a computer in a spare room at work and had to go get the IT guy to patch back in that room to the switch.. didn't want to use the wifi

Good luck to you... you'll learn eventually I guess (and no even though I worked for them I did NOT setup wifi for myself)...

EDIT: apparently only the new dorms offer wifi.. the older dorms still do not offer it... so if you do go to univ of illinois.. i strongly recommend you DO NOT do it