Wi-Fi not welcome

[Agent-Cooper]

I have a new Wi-Fi hub which is black, my problem is I can not see on the back a physical button to turn off Wi-Fi, do talk talk really think it's ok to force this on me, I don't like it, I never use it. So my question is can I turn off Wi-Fi on this router?

[Agent-Cooper]

HI  Gliwmaeden2, 

Yes I did manage to switch off the wifi on the router, it was really easy, just a couple of clicks to find the settings for it. The tough part was finding the password to sign in to the U.I. Thanks for asking!

[Gliwmaeden2]

@KeithFrench, thanks, I'll follow up if need be in a separate thread.

@Agent-Cooper, did you manage to switch off WiFi as explained in KeithFrench's reply, 5th post in the thread?

[KeithFrench]

I think @Gliwmaeden2, one of the problems with WiFi security is that a lot of people think it is the responsibility of the ISP & use their router in its default configuration. In the ideal world, that is what people want. Alas, we don't live in that world anymore & so much about WiFi security is down to the user. 

That parent may well have just been a bandwidth thief, but could have been a lot worse. If he was accessing certain content & the Police got involved; they could have gone to TalkTalk & forced them to provide browsing logs. They would see your router's public IP address in there, not the device's private IP address allocated by the router. You could then find yourself under investigation, as it was your router's IP address that they have logs about.

Then you are probably more at risk from someone outside your property with just a phone monitoring your WiFi network, even worse though is someone with a laptop out of sight.

Then you have things like cheap tech with poor WiFi security, like a lot of IoT devices. There are many reports where people with CCTV cameras or a certain video doorbell that only operates in the 2.4GHz band, perhaps do not realise. These are simple to disable altogether via an illegal radio jamming device.

I could go on & on about this, but if you have the router I think you have (I am not going to name it here), have you enabled WPA3? If only the cheap tech that I mentioned supported WPA3, then it would be immune to that WiFi jammer.

[Gliwmaeden2]

It's only been one parent in nearly 40 years of teaching (and I suspect they were recording lessons too as the notes appear written up neatly later in a notebook!).

Still, used without permission, and my new password is not going to be penetrable by them.

Just agreeing with the OP that you can't be too careful as "there's always one" that abuses it. Easily solved as an issue as you outline above.

We all need reminding not to drop our guard now and then, but, as the OP suggests, it should be easier to NOT use wifi at all if you prefer.

We have all been pushed in this gloriously wireless technology direction regardless of individual preference. It's fundamentally less secure than controlling through ethernet and also delivers poorer speeds to individual devices. 

[KeithFrench]

Hi @Gliwmaeden2 

You have obviously fallen foul of one of the main WiFi vulnerabilities that are so simple to fix:-

1. Change the WiFi network name (SSID) to one of your own. The default one identifies to anyone nearby your house with a WiFi analyser on their phone, your ISP and from that they can guess which router you have. This also makes life so much easier if you change routers at any time for whatever reason. You just set the replacement router to your current name & password, and then you do not need to change this in your connected devices.
2. Change the WiFi password. OK, you have learnt that lesson, but also make it much longer & more secure.
3. Change the router's admin password & once again make that much longer & more secure.

[KeithFrench]

You can permanently disable it within the router's UI. Assuming it is a Sagemcom Wi-Fi Hub & not a Huawei one that looks almost identical, go to:-

See Wi-Fi settings where one click will disable it.

[Gliwmaeden2]

I think you are right to be cautious, @Agent-Cooper.

These days some visitors help themselves to the details as the writing on the card for the password is quite large. I had my back turned and found that a parent of a pupil has been helping themselves to my wifi....

Waiting to see his face when he discovers he can't get into it this week thanks to a change of password etc...

People do take liberties with it.

[Agent-Cooper]

Hi fr8ys,

Thanks for the email, I don't thhink it's right not having a physical WLAN button, wifi isn't for everyone, norm or not.

I don't like it because of privacy, health and surveillance purposes. People today just connect and don't think wifi is not good, google and wigle have a web site that lists every wifi connection in the world and they also log all the devices that connect to it, that's just the start of of it, I hard wire every thing in my property. Wifi also is a form of radiation, all those waves are no good for you.

So hopefully I can go in to the configuration page and turn it off for good.

Thanks again for getting in touch with me.

Agent-Cooper

[fr8ys]

You should be able to do this from your dashboard available on your PC.

WiFi is the norm these days and the physical ability to turn it off is missing from routers more and more.

If you don't use it, and are worried about others using it, they can only use it if you give them the access code. Leaving it on shouldn't be an issue if you never divulge it.