[lowkickqop]

I'm using a shared network. WPA2. I disabled file and printer sharing. I'm no network pro nor do I have one single stolen song or movie on my PC. However I don't want my network admin being able to see my activity. How can I hide everything from him or take every measure I can to do so?

 

[98uk]

Don't be on the network. So long as they have admin access to the routing device, chances are they can monitor your traffic (unless it's VPN perhaps).

 

[lowkickqop]

So what do I do? I'm not a networking professional.

 

[Valor958]

To my understanding, there's nothing you can do while actually on the same network. If the admin really wants to know, they can know.
You can try browsing via the 'anonymous' modes in browsers if the admin just scans tracking data, but any active monitoring will not be masked. Same for Tor and basically every other option i believe. If anything, going out of your way to obscure yourself will draw more attention to yourself when it wasn't previously warranted.
So, this a college, home, or work network? That makes a difference really, since each admin for each area will be looking at different things in different ways.
If it's a work admin, don't tempt fate...

I am every time i'm on here (like now), but i get my work done and be a good boy, so they don't really care. Plus, their filter is REALLY good, so... it's hard to get in trouble on 'accident' lol.

 

[coachmark2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 98uk

Don't be on the network. So long as they have admin access to the routing device, chances are they can monitor your traffic (unless it's VPN perhaps).

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowkickqop

So what do I do? I'm not a networking professional.

There are ways of hiding your traffic once it gets to the internet such as TOR browser, but when you're in their house, you play by their rules. Any network admin with rights to the routing device can view the logs of what traffic has passed through and can see where it originated from. I use it to check when my brother is watching porn in his room.

JK, he doesn't actually do that, but I've seen his web traffic and there's not a thing in the world he can do about it.

It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to hide your traffic from someone who has admin rights to see it

 

[98uk]

Don't be on the network. So long as someone else is an admin, with the right tools they can monitor traffic. For files, just turn off all sharing, turn off homegroups etc...

You can use a paid for VPN service... but i'm not sure whether this is effective at local router level.

EDIT: If it's work, the best way is to social engineer them to ignore haha. I always chat to my IT team and when they were over from Germany, we got them a few beers... since then they let the odd application here and there slide

 

[TwilightEscape]

VPN wont help. Data would be collected before it's ever encrypted and sent to the VPN.

I wouldn't worry about it. Unless you know the guy has a knack for monitoring or snooping he probably isn't going to. Reason why? It's a waste of time for the most part. Collecting things like facebook passwords or viewing someones browsing history is just not worth the effort of pouring through the data.

If you want to encrypt your data to the access point then the access point has to be setup to do so as well, in which case the admin would still have access to it. Plain and simple you either need to connect to another network, or just not care. He has access to where the data is coming through and when it hits the router it's no longer WPA2 encrypted and can be logged, very little to be done about it.

 

[sasuke256]

VPN encrypted with a 128bit key

i think the admin would be able to "understand" what is in the packets which are travelling in the network even if he can read them

 

[Versa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coachmark2

There are ways of hiding your traffic once it gets to the internet such as TOR browser, but when you're in their house, you play by their rules. Any network admin with rights to the routing device can view the logs of what traffic has passed through and can see where it originated from. I use it to check when my brother is watching porn in his room.

JK, he doesn't actually do that, but I've seen his web traffic and there's not a thing in the world he can do about it.
It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to hide your traffic from someone who has admin rights to see it

Any decent network admin will find traffic logs, encrypted or not, and block numerous resources such as P2P clients for example. have a 2620 router filtering P2P traffic here, don't want any torrenting in this house for some obvious reasons

 

[98uk]

Would it be possible to build a small router from a Linux PC (or just buy a cheap DD-WRT router), then setup encryption on it and bridge it to the router in the LAN? So the data flow would be:

Users PC --> Homebrew/DD-WRT Router --> Bridge --> LAN router --> Internet

Would this encrypt data before it reached the LAN router that the admin has access to?

 

[lowkickqop]

It's for home use if that makes any difference.

 

[98uk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowkickqop

It's for home use if that makes any difference.

Watch your porn on 3G then.

 

[lowkickqop]

It's really just about liking my own privacy. I don't like the feeling of being monitored no matter what I am doing.

 

[Valor958]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowkickqop

It's for home use if that makes any difference.

If this translates to 'parent is snooping on my browsing habits', Google's anonymous browsing should do fine really. Having disabled file/print sharing is a nice start, and also password protect your OS profile (if you haven't already). If they're really snoopy, do a BIOS password as well and shut down the PC every time you leave.

If you give us more on your specific situation we can tailor our responses more towards your needs. Right now, you're getting generalizations.

 

[lowkickqop]

It's an apartment building. Free wifi is included. The people that live here I would guess are college graduates.

 

[yanks8981]

It really depends on the kind of network you are sitting on. If it is a large corporation, the bad news is most places have monitor tools in the background that you are not going to be able to bypass. They see all traffic as it leaves the building. The good news is, as long as you arent doing anything illegal or against company policy, you likely blend in with the 100s of others doing the same thing and no one cares. If you work in a smaller company where maybe IT is less advanced and they are just happy that "everything works", they probably arent monitoring what yo uare doing, or anyone else, unless they outsource that part to an IT company.

All in all, don't worry about it. If you aren't doing anything illegal, theres a good chance your network admin doesnt care what you are doing, because you arent the only one doing it. If its like the situation above where the guy monitors his brothers activity, I guess you just deal with it.

 

[yanks8981]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowkickqop

It's an apartment building. Free wifi is included. The people that live here I would guess are college graduates.

So my long post has nothing to do with what you are talking about

Overall, I cant think of any easy or inexpensive way to get around this.

 

[lowkickqop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valor958

If this translates to 'parent is snooping on my browsing habits', Google's anonymous browsing should do fine really. Having disabled file/print sharing is a nice start, and also password protect your OS profile (if you haven't already). If they're really snoopy, do a BIOS password as well and shut down the PC every time you leave.
If you give us more on your specific situation we can tailor our responses more towards your needs. Right now, you're getting generalizations.

How specific do you want me to be?

 

[Valor958]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowkickqop

It's an apartment building. Free wifi is included. The people that live here I would guess are college graduates.

I would check your lease for terms regarding the included wifi. Since it is internet for personal use, their tracking of it should be limited at best. I still feel 'anonymous' browsing would work just fine for most applications, but since you aren't a P2P guy, you shouldn't have to worry about attracting much attention anyways. Likely, they don't even actively monitor it since that would require an in house IT staff, which they aren't going to want to spend money on. I've lived at several places with free wifi either included or at their clubhouses, and none had staff to monitor it. If there was an issue with software/ hardware, they'd call or have you call the ISP they get stuff from.
I wouldn't worry about it man.

 

[DuckieHo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowkickqop

It's an apartment building. Free wifi is included. The people that live here I would guess are college graduates.

You have to just deal with it.... Admin is god. They have permissions to do anything for good reason.... they are responsible for management.