Signals

So, funny story related to today’s episode of Doctor Who. It really won’t make any sense unless you’ve seen it already, but it’s absolutely true, it was absolutely unexpected, and it’s right up there with the “draw hash marks on your friends’ arms while they sleep” gag.

After I’d watched Doctor Who, I was “summoned” to the other side of the house from where my computer room is. This usually involves someone yelling “DAAAAAAAAAAAD!” Because, you know, we’re on a tight budget and can’t afford to get those little hand bells that people ring to call the butler. So I’m walking across the house, and about the time I hit the center of the house, the tablet I’m holding in my hand pops up a message that it has never popped up before at the house.

New wi-fi network detected.

Oh, nicely played, I thought. I couldn’t figure out how my wife was doing it, but nicely played. And ahead of schedule for April Fools’ Day too – my heart swelled with pride, I’ve clearly rubbed off on her after all these years. I opened the networking tab to see what the network was called, at which point I saw that it was only one bar worth of signal, and locked down with WEP.

Okay, bit elaborate for a joke, and I’m not sure how anyone would do that without setting up another wi-fi router. That’s when it hit me – after all these years, someone else living around here has finally stepped into the 21st century and embraced the interwebs! The nearest neighbor is over a quarter of a mile away, so the north end of my house is barely on the periphery of picking up their signal.

Which means I’m finally going to have lock my router down. I have an older router, and frankly, it’s not putting out the most impressive wi-fi bubble anyone’s ever seen – on the front of the house, the wi-fi doesn’t even hit the end of the driveway. It just barely reaches the west end of the house, and extends only a little bit outside the house on the east and south sides. I can sit on the back deck and be on the ‘net; if I go to the fence, that’s a bit more iffy.

For nearly ten years my joke has been that my wi-fi security was not encryption, but dogs: anyone hitting the wi-fi would have to be sitting in the driveway, at which point they’d have their own set of problems. I guess it’s time for me to step into the 21st century too and take the security of my media server full of old sci-fi shows seriously. 😛