How do I stop my neighbor from using my IP address?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom here for askleo.com. Ask
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experience on askleo.com. So, let's get right into the
question because it actually has what I will call a bit of a
misunderstanding about how things works. My neighbor used
my IP address to send out Emails. How does this work? Can
I change my IP address? I've Googled this topic and the
answers are very confusing. Honestly, it depends on how
they got your IP address and in fact, whether it's really yours
at all. There are couple of things that could potentially
be going on here. Let's look at each one. If they're actually
literally using your IP address, then, that implies,
they're on your network. They are on your local network using
your internet connection. The most common way that happens is
if they are close enough to connect to your WiFi and your
WiFi happens to be open. In other words, it doesn't require
a password. That way, yeah, they're sending Email or just
using the internet through your connection, through your ISP
and that's probably not something you wanna have
happen. I know that people do it on purpose but it's after
been asked and they are aware of the situation and they've
actually given their neighbor permission to do so. Clearly,
from the nature of your question, that's probably not
the situation here. So, how do you solve this? How do you fix
this? Well, the quickest way to deal with this is to put a
password on your WiFi. Use a WPA two or WPA three password
so that in order to connect to your WiFi, any machine, yours
included, would have to supply this password to do so. That'll
kick your neighbor off the network if you've been using an
open WiFi. If you were password protected, well, change the
password. Because it's very likely that your neighbor
somehow figured out what the password is. They can't sniff
it. It's not that kind of security. It's not that easy to
do but somehow, they got it. So, change it. That's how you
kick 'em off the WiFi. Now, the other issue of course is what
if they're not using WiFi? Well, The only way as I said
that they could be using your actual IP address is if they
are on your actual network. If they're not using WiFi, there's
a cable somewhere. They're plugged into your router or
something. I don't know how it seems really unlikely because
it seems like it would be really obvious that there was a
cable running next door but the point being though that if
they're actually using your IP address, they are your network.
That's bad for a number of reasons and you should be
looking for ways to stop that. WiFi is the most obvious, but
if it's a cable, it's a cable. Now, there are some other
explanations here. They all boil down to it not really
being your IP address. First, IP addresses are confusing.
Let's read them very, very carefully and what's worse is
that regardless of what IP address they're using, they're
probably using the same ISP you are. In other words, if you're
Getting your internet connectivity from Comcast and
that's who serves your network, maybe they are too. Point being
then that the IP address range that is used to assign to
individuals are using an ISP maybe similar. It's very
possible that they have the same IP address as you do with
the exception of one digit being different. That's a
different IP address. If you're not careful, could look like
the same but you must very carefully look at the IP
addresses that you're finding to see exactly what they are
and they must be digit for digit the same before you can
claim it's your IP address where did you come up with this
IP address? That actually leads to an interesting question. I
don't know how you know they're sending Email from your IP
address. My assumption is that somebody got Email or maybe
even you got Email and you're seeing that IP address in the
headers, the the headers of the Email that we don't normally
see. Be again, very, very careful that you're looking at
the right thing. Especially, if you got the Email, your IP
address is going to be in those headers if you received the
Email. It doesn't imply that they sent it from your IP
address. It's implies that you received it at your IP address.
You get the idea, right? So, be very, very careful that what
you are seeing in those Email headers is in fact the IP
address they are sending from. My gues is, it might not be and
finally, it's also very important to realize that at
the consumer level, at the consumer ISP level, the
residential ISP level, your IP address can change. It can
change frequently, like once a day, it can change only once a
month, it can, it doesn't, it's unclear. It depends on the
various different ISPs on how frequently they will change
your IP address. Sometimes, unplugging your router and
plugging it back in again will get you a new IP address,
sometimes it won't. It depends in entirely on the ISP. So, I
can't really give you instructions there on how to
get a different IP address. In fact, if you do want to figure
out how to get a different IP address from your ISP, you'll
have to talk to them. They're the only ones that can tell you
what their system will respond to to do that but it raises a
very, very interesting point. Since IP addresses can change
for both you and your neighbor, it is possible not likely but
possible that your IP address today could have been their IP
address yesterday. In other words, they had it, their IP
address changed, you had something else, your IP address
changed, to what they used to have. Like I said, it's
statistically improbable. I'll call it, but it is certainly
possible. So, I hope that helps a little bit in understanding
what kinds of things you need to be looking for. My money is
the open WiFi hotspot so definitely take a look at your
WiFi access and whether you've got that appropriately secure.
For comments, for updates, for related links and more, visit
Ask Leo.com slash 381 four. I'm Leo Notenboom. This is askleo.com.
Thanks for watching.