Cheers for the explanation guys

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4721723.stm

 

That's the one I was thinking about. I prefer the baseball bat solution myself

 

I always jump on a "free" AP whenever I go round my mums house

Fools have even got their wireless config set with default passwords!, I was tempted to place a MAC filter for my NIC only

Just as-well I'm not a nasty bu99er really

 

ADP - you really need to get this sorted. As many have said - you must use encryption. Forget all this MAC address filtering stuff - it can be compromised so easily. Get yourself some decent equipment and use proper levels of encryption. 64bit WEP can be broken in 10 mins. I'll happily direct you to the site that demonstrates it if you like

My advice would be to use as a minimum 128bit WEP (if you must use WEP). WPA - AES is much preferred.

If you a) can't get it to work b) don't want to spend out for new equipment, then you are left with one choice - turn off your wireless network. Get some advice from a decent secuity consultancy firm who can set this up for you.