Which Wireless Router Would Work Here?

[em2ab]

I don't want to pay for internet in my apartment so I planned to buy a wireless router and put it on the public computer in the lobby. Hopefully I can hide it well enough that nobody will see it, and if they do, they'll think it's the property of the building and leave it alone.
But I picked up a regular 54Mbps Belkin G router for $40 and it worked a few feet away from my apartment door but not inside my apartment. I brought that back and picked up a 2x/4x 128Mbps Netgear router for $80 and it was exactly the same. My laptop is B/G only, and I know the 10x N routers are backwards compatible with G but will one of those reach my apartment you think? I'm up one floor and down the hall about 100-150 feet but I think the building's mostly concrete. Any suggestions? I could pick up a high gain antenna I guess (not sure how they work) but that's another $40 in itself.

[eblend]

If you put it on the network, make sure you hide the ssid as well as set up some encryption on it. Also if you are not getting much signal, try to change the channel it broadcasts on. I would recommend a nice router like a dir-655 .
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX15586(ME).aspx

[codetrap]

Uh.. shady?

So, $80 pays for 4 months worth of shaw.. are you sure you've thought this through?

[GQBalla]

80 dollars doesn't pay for 4 months of shaw...true it is kinda shady but whatever its free internet

chances are you might not even get a signal, all you have to do is hidden ssid with mac filtering no need for encryption that is easily broken with about 5 minutes of work

[em2ab]

Ya, I set up filtering on both of the ones I put down, just didn't hide the SSID. I'll do that. But I'm in New York, Verizon internet here is like $50 a month and that's on top of buying a wireless router anyway. I shouldn't have sold mine for $10 when I left Calgary.......doh. So I'll try changing the channel.....if that doesn't work, any more suggestions? A new router maybe?

*Edit - what if I just break the encryption on any of the present wireless signals in the building? There's lots there, how do I do it? Someone told me I needed a wireless chip with a certain type of prism chip, not sure of anything past that.

[em2ab]

The Belkin Router: http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Belkin-F5D72304-Wireless-Router-F5D7230-4/sem/rpsm/oid/73704/catOid/-12980/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

The Netgear Router: http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Netgear-Super-G-Wireless-Router-with-4-Port-Switch-WGT624NA/sem/rpsm/oid/86260/catOid/-12980/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

[eblend]

to break encryption you need aircrack and a compatible wifi card.

Whoever said encryption is easy to break is overly generalizing. WEP can be broken rather easy, but other encryptions are much harded and take much more time to crack. If you see full signal wep around your area, crack it like you own it. I did the same at my parents place before I moved out as i took all my internet stuff with me, they been using neighbours wifi for last 6 month no problems, and most people don't ahve the knowhow to crack anything, so its relatively secure and no outsiders are using it, so all is good :D

by the way, i can't tell you how many times people use their phone number as a key, so if you know the phone number for your neighbours, try that first :)

[GQBalla]

depends on your wireless nic or wifi chip in your laptop.

*mods if im not aloud to talk about this you may delete this*

i wont go into detail since its illegal, but you can download the software just google cracking wifi.

what i use is a cisco card plug it into my laptop, scan channels, pick one i want, and start picking up iv's, once you have enough iv's you can basically bruteforce the password.

the program i use is aircrack

really easy you need a aironet chip or atheros chip with aircrack i believe