Kathleen:

There's always a chance that someone can look into your computer when you 
venture into the LAN/WAN world such as your son is about to do; however, I 
would take only these 2 precautions unless your son has incredibly sensitive 
data to protect:

1) make sure you have a firewall program running such as Windows Firewall --  
chances are your neighbor's WiFi has out-of-the-box firewall running and it 
would be a good step to take firewall safety into your hands.

2) make sure that any shared folders ONLY have data that you can share with 
the world

People are typically hacked when they don't update their security on their 
operating system, they don't have current anti-virus software which can 
allow a trojan file in, they open doors (shared folders with sensitive 
material or no firewall) or have a reason to be hacked (have identity, 
financial or other sensitive data.)

hope this helps,
gary r. tennesen
[log in to unmask]

From: "Sybilgal" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [PCBUILD] Using Wireless connection

> Hi all,
>
> My son just told me his neighbor gave him her wireless password so he 
> could get on line, as he just moved in and doesn't yet have DSL. 
> Question--can she see into his computer--and how? Plus, how can he prevent 
> that?
>
 

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