See, i originally thought that wireless encryption was about protecting *your* data from people intercepting it and potentially using it to violate your privacy or whatever, so i've never believed in it, since you have to figure that it takes quite a bit of computing know-how to intercept data and make it readable
But now it has dawned on me that the point is to prevent netjacking, which i'm totally stupid for not having figured out before. See, i've been experiencing slower internet speeds at my college lately than usual, so i contacted my IT department. I was using an unsecured netgear router, but mostly using it by wired connection (the reason i have it here at all is that my college WiFi is too complex for Wii or DS), i gave the IT people my IP address to help them localize the problem, and they came back saying that i've been torrenting, which i haven't done in a looong time. I have the software, but it hasn't been used in a while. Of course, torrenting is against the rules at my school, and them being unaware that i was using the netgear router, they think it had to be me running those files out of that ethernet port. They e-mailed me a list of copyrighted files that had been taken through that port, which included some Lil Wayne mp3s (like i'd ever), and now they're going to recommend to the disciplinary board that i have my hard-drive re-imaged (which i'm not sure they're legally allowed to do. It's their school, but my hard-drive is my property)
The point is that apparently someone (or perhaps multiple people in my house) were netjacking, and now i'm going to have to vigorously prove this wasn't me...
Lesson learned :/
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
