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 :/

Switch to WEP encryption so that your DS/Wii can still access it, then turn on MAC Address filtering and add your DS/Wii/etc MAC addresses to it.

Hard luck man, I hope it all works out for you.

I don't even bother with encryption since it's a pain in the ass, so I just use the MAC address filter on my router.

Sometimes I leave my router open just to invite the leechers in, then I make their lives miserable with some executable commands. =) It's fun to teach people a lesson.

Interesting story. My one proffesor used to take the bus to school.

He'd browse stuff online on the bus. Apparently there was so much unsecured wireless internet he could go most the way browsing the internet without ever losing connection for more then a couple seconds.

Hope it works out for you though.

Check your connection log. You should have one, and record what the MAC address of the PC is that's connecting wirelessly. Take a screenshot too.

MAC addresses (while they can be spoofed), as physical addresses in your network card. If you can prove it's not yours, or better yet, find the network card it belongs too, it might help.

By the way, unprotected wireless in a University, means you probably have 5-10 people using it.

Yeah wireless encryption is very important especially if you live in an area that potentially has heaps of wireless users (like an apartment building).

You should do what I did and buy one of those Nintendo wireless adapters, well worth the price you pay for piece of mind (I don't even trust WEP encryption and stick to WPA, or whatever it's called. I'm not really tech savvy). All you need is a computer connected to the internet with a USB port (so you could technically use your universities internet, I think..).

Anyway, it's a sucky situation to be in, but good luck with it.

That bit is past, as i had already thought to do what Words of Wisdom suggested, and run WEP encryption on the netgear, but to do that, i had to factory reset it, because i forgot my own username and password for it (which i had apparently changed from the defaults), so those logs are gone

And either way, i don't want to help IT in their witch hunt, just to prove my innocence.