Neighbors maybe Jamming our WiFi signal! Need help proving it.

To make a long story short, my parents and their neighbors have an on going fued(as childish as it is, we do live in Florida). Among having security cameras pointed at my parents house we suspect they are jamming my parents wifi network. At first I was sceptical to their claims but having been through about 10 wifi outages in the past 24 hours I too am beginning to suspect something foul is going, the latest alleged jam corresponded with said neighbor comming home for her lunch break and all the alleged jams occur when they are home and. Various law enforcement agencies have been contacted as well as the FCC, however being a petty crime they don't seem to care. I need some insight on how to prove the said neighbors are maliciously jamming my parents network and what appropriate actions they should take.

My advice to them is to give up using wifi and use landlines on all their computers(both parents work out of their home), routing cat 5 cables through the house is a bit of a headache and my brother and I would be doing the work, needless to say as of right now my parents are still using wifi. They have tried switching channels, changing passcodes, ect.; however if the said neighbors do have a jamming device not much can be done to prevent the network from going down.

Any advice both legal and technical will be of great help to me and my family.

Wow, fueds are nasty..

They should set up laser pointers to shine into the Cameras that are pointing at their house..

As for the WiFi, what happens? Do you get a total loss of signal or what? We need more details to accurately determine the issue. Most WAPs I know of do have the capability of changing radio channels, so that might be an option.

Have you tried changing out the router? Most likely it's going out.

I'd shoot for the simple answers first before jumping to jamming. A defective router is the more likely cause. Routers do go out. If they are using desktops also change out the wifi network card just to be safe. Network cards go out too.

Laser's at their cameras resulted in a police confrontation, no good.

My parents have been through 3 different routers in the past 6months. The one that is up now is less than a month old. Also all computers connected are affected when the alleged jam occurs.

When you say "jam" what does that mean exactly? Are wireless devices not receiving any signal at all? Are there any other wireless signals that the devices can pick up, except for your parents signal? Are you getting internet through cable or DSL?

By jamming I mean using a device such as THIS to transmit RF(radio frequency/waves) at the same bandwidth as the router to effectly knock the device out of service. The technology is there and I've found many do it yourself websites such as this ONE that spell out how its done.

I was an AT(aviation electronics tech) in the Navy so I am not totally inept when it comes to things like this but for me to detect a possible 'jam' I would some very high price equipment. I am hoping someone with experience in this field can tell me a simpler way to detect a possible jam.

I am not sure what is going on with my parents wifi network, but there seems to be increasing evidence to me that the signal is getting jammed. I've only been at my parents house for a few days and yesterday was the first time I've been online with my personal computer, they have been complaining about the wifi problem for over a year now so I am still trying to get a better picture of what is going wrong.

reply to post by jrod


Seems a bit extravagant, but then fueds get that way at times... Best way to try to see what is going on is to get a network traffic analyzer like wireshark to see what is occurring at the stack level. If you are seeing 5 bars or so on WiFi reception, but the network trace shows bad packets all over the place, then yes, it might be getting jammed.

Another option is to verify the network is good by running temporary cat5 lines (just over the floor) to guarantee that the problem is in the WiFi signal and not something else.

Another possibility could be that the neighbor is piggybacking the wifi and downloading files using your parent's internet connection...maybe downloading hundreds of priated songs, child porn, and applications? People investigating such a thing would identify your parents network as the source.

Document everything you figure out.

reply to post by Toromos


There are other networks within range of my wifi antenna, however knowing where they are coming they are likely out of range from a possible jam, assuming a 'dead zone' of 30m. When the 'event' occurs my PC appears to not pick up any of the local networks, though next time it happens I will check it out, I have 2 wifi cards on my computer, one internal and one external and can view each seperatly.They are using cable internet.

It may be unintentional. Could be that the "bad" neighbor, or even another one in close proximity is doing something inadvertently that affects your parents' signal. Do your parents or any of the neighbors have satellite TV per chance? If a neighbor (or even your parents) has satellite and is using some personal gear to "broadcast" the signal internally around the premises rather than paying the satellite company for additional set top satellite boxes, that's a possibility, for example.

reply to post by rogerstigers


I've already verified a good network from the modem when an outage occurs, it seems that the problem lies from the router to our computers. We have a secured network and the pass key has been changed a few times in the past couple of months so I find it highly unlikely they are piggybacking on this network.

So on to an analyzer like wireshark it is for me. I just got a new(to me) computer and wish I still had my old one up and running, it came with network traffic analyzer.

reply to post by yeahright


I dont think we are getting any interference from something like satellite tv. None of our neighbors in range have satellite television.

Now that I have posted something about the ongoing problem, the network was been working without problems. Kinda wierd.

reply to post by jrod


That is kinda weird, but here in conspiracy land it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that rather than being jammed perhaps their activity is being intercepted? That would be one way to explain the coincidence.

Of the alternatives presented above, a sloppy media sharing network next door seems to me most likely - the article from ZDNet basically describes unintentional jamming introduced by "compatible" technologies - otherwise, why isn't the jamming constant?

gj

I'm not sure about the internet issue, but you can dazzle security cameras with Infra Red spot lights, people can't see IR lights but digital cameras are very sensitive to it. If you set up a couple of IR spots pointing at the cameras they wouldn't be able to see anything, if there bright enough they will even work during the day.

Theres an article here that says that new wireless phones are very good at overpowering wifi signals, maybe your neighbors have a new phone and it isn't intentional, lots of other things can accidentally interfere with the wifi signal according to the article

My initial thoughts when my parents first told my this problem over a year and many routers ago was it had to be something else but given the nature of the fued between my parents and the neighbors, I do think jamming the signal is a possiblity and have been trying to eliminate other possible reasons why this could be happening. It could be a new cell phone, but I'm thinking it would not be strong enough to reach the router that is located in the center of my parents house. I am still working on getting a good network analyzer on my Dad's computer, one that he can use and make sense of the data coming in so when/if it happens again while one of us is online we'll have some more info to the nature of the problem.

There has yet to be another wifi outage since I started this thread, when before they were experiencing and outage at least once an hour while the neighbors were home durring non-sleeping hours. I find that being a strange coincidence.

fwiw:

We had a similar type problem once with our wifi signal/connection. Every time some one was on the phone the wifi signal went out. It turned out that the cordless phones operated on the same or near same frequency as did the router. Once the phone call was ended the signal would come back. (after having to reboot the router)

once we replaced the cordless phones with ones that operated at a higher frequency the problem went away.

I'm not saying that's the case in your parent's situation, but if the houses are in close enough proximity to one another, it could very well be the cause for such.

You might try going to MetaGeek and downloading inSSIDer which is a free, open source network scanner. Maybe check which channels aren't being used at the prescribed times and move accordingly?

Just a thought. It still doesn't answer your original concern about how to prove the neighbors are jamming the signal. Of course, it renders the question moot if a different cause is identified and isolated.

I'm still betting on inadvertent outside interference.

I think the trouble with network traffic scanners is that they will only recognize actual wifi signals and not other things that may be interfering.
A stupid question, but have you tried switching channels?

We're are still having problems. I downloaded chanalyzer but it only picks up wifi networks, so it is useless in trying to find the source of what/where the signal that jams our network. Our neighbors network has outages some of the time when we do as well. Like I posted before, we've been on different channels, swapped routers, ect..

I downloaded wireshark but haven't figured out how to use it, I think it would be capable of detecting more signals that are jamming the network not just other local wifi networks. Anyone more ideas of how to get to the bottom of this.

There is a far simpler explanation.
The primary user of 2.4Ghz band is radiolocation.

2.4ghz is what is also called a ISM “industrial scientific and medical” band. Devices that use RF power to heat, and process stuff will use that band.

2.4ghz wifi is a secondary user of the band. That means that it can not cause interference to the primary user of the band, and it must accept all interference from anyone without any authority over anyone.

Microwave ovens also use that band.

The amateur radio service also uses that band, all be it at a much higher power limit. A max of 1.2KW. The amateur service is also a secondary user.

It is common for “leaky” microwave ovens to wipe out wifi coverage when ever they run. If the other person is a ham operator, and running a high wattage spread spectrum signal, that could be doing it. If there is a factory close by with an RF heating devices, that could be causing it. If there is a primary user of the band close by (radiolocation), then they could be wiping it out.

reply to post by jrod


wifi signal direction locator