Is someone stealing my internet ?

[Elgee]

I'm having the same old problem of my 2gigs internet getting used up at an unbelievable rate - at home.

 

Let me put it this way: we have 2 gigs at work, and i have 2 gigs at home. In May we used 30% only of our 2 gigs at work, but I used the full 2 gigs at home. Not only that, on sunday (1st June), I mysteriously used up 29% !!!!!! of 2 gigs!!!!

 

My usage at home is the same every day (obviously slightly more on weekends, but not much). I spend more time online at work than i do at home. I do NOT use ava's and sigs, facebook, myspace, youtube, any kind of video or such at home, though we do all of that at work, and where there are 2 of us online.

 

To give you some idea, I'm pasting my daily usage reports from my service provider for the past few days (sunday should have been LESS, since i was lying in bed sick most of the time).

 

A friendly notification that according to our records your online usage as at [2008-5-29 00:00:01] reflected the following:

 

Username : blah blah

Uploaded : 345MB or [0.33GB]

Downloaded : 1.64GB

Combined Total : 1.98GB

Service threshold : 2.00GB

Percentage used : 99.05%

 

A friendly notification that according to our records your online usage as at [2008-5-30 00:00:01] reflected the following:

 

Username : blah blah

Uploaded : 348MB or [0.34GB]

Downloaded : 1.65GB

Combined Total : 1.99GB

Service threshold : 2.00GB

Percentage used : 99.51%

 

A friendly notification that according to our records your online usage as at [2008-5-31 00:00:01] reflected the following:

 

Username : blah blah

Uploaded : 354MB or [0.34GB]

Downloaded : 1.66GB

Combined Total : 2.00GB

Service threshold : 2.00GB

Percentage used : 100.38%

 

A friendly notification that according to our records your online usage as at [2008-6-1 00:00:01] reflected the following:

 

Username : blah blah

Uploaded : 258KB or [0.00GB]

Downloaded : 811KB or [0.00GB]

Combined Total : 1MB or [0.00GB]      1 used 1 mb in 1 second ??

Service threshold : 2.00GB

Percentage used : 0.05%

 

 

friendly notification that according to our records your online usage as at [2008-6-2 00:00:01] reflected the following:

 

Username : blah blah

Uploaded : 198MB or [0.19GB]

Downloaded : 412MB or [0.40GB]

Combined Total : 611MB or [0.59GB]

Service threshold : 2.00GB

Percentage used : 29.84%

 

[JenniferL]

Have you checked your computer for spyware? That might account for some bandwith loss.

[Elgee]

I check with AVG and Windows Vista's own stuff every few days. Have found 4 Trojan Virusses, that have been put in the Virus vault.

 

But wouldn't a worm or a virus or something cause consistent high usage, not normal for a few days, and then something impossibly high ?

 

 

[Shendare]

In my view, the high Upload value is of more concern than the high Download value.

 

In the entire month of May, you uploaded a total of 354 MB.

 

In the single day of June 1st, you uploaded a total of 198 MB, 56% of the previous month's cumulative total.

 

If you didn't do anything special online that day, I would really suspect a virus of some kind as well, perhaps one that's used to occasionally send thousands of spam e-mails (e-mails can be as small as 1/1000 of a MB each or smaller, so 198,000 could use up 198 MB). You might be "lucky" enough to be one of the computers under the control of a spammer's "botnet".

[Elgee]

oh bugger ... so how do i get rid of it ? lews told me about something i can download, but i can't remember the name now ... search and destroy ?

[Shendare]

You said you have AVG. I'm surprised that's not catching it. You're up-to-date on the updates for it? I know Version 8.0 comes with Anti-Spyware as well as Anti-Virus (and even Anti-Rootkit if you get the for-pay version).

 

You can also check Microsoft.com for their "Malicious Software Removal Tool", which is generally run as part of Windows updates.

 

And Spybot Search and Destroy is a good spyware-removal program [ Link ], as is Lavasoft's Ad-Aware [ Link ]. Both have free versions.

 

You mentioned you have Vista as well, which should have come with Windows Defender. That can run a spyware sweep on the computer, too.

[Elgee]

I have the free version of AVG, and the Vista windows defender. 4 Trojan Virusses did come through, and it moved them to the virus vault, but i think it said by one that it couldn't destroy it? I would have to check when i'm at home what exactly it said.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Do you use Lime Wire?  Or, any suchlike Peer-to-Peer filesharing program?  For anything?

 

Those are great for keeping a daemon running in the background and using you as a source for re-downloads.  Even when you think you have them completely shut-down.

[Elgee]

I only use MSN and Hotmail, and then I come on DM, A New Turn, and Photobucket.

[Elgee]

i forgot about gmail (for DM WT: email and spreadheets) and the WT website

 

update: i downloaded search and destroy, scanned everything with that, and it found 1 thing, which it deleted - i don't know if that could have been it.

 

There's also 4 Trojan Viruses in my AVG Virus Vault - i don't know what to do with them.

[Shendare]

The option to Empty Virus Vault deletes the offending files.

 

You mentioned Photobucket... are you sure you didn't upload and download a bunch of pictures? Picture files can eat up bandwidth very quickly.

[Elgee]

i might upload 1 or 2 photo's a month, maximum.

might send photo's over msn, but not many - maybe 5 or so a week

 

[Elgee]

update 3:

 

my neighbour used to work for my service provider, and i just heard 2 interesting pieces of information:

 

1: he was fired for fraud

2: my sister heard him shout at his son on sunday (when I was sick and not going online much, but mysteriously managed to use that 29%) to "get off the computer you've been on it all day" ... they don't have internet.

 

 

[Shendare]

Yikes.

 

How easy is it to change your password again?

[Elgee]

impossible - it's generated by my service provider - but i've reported bandwidth abuse to them - here's hoping

[Thorum]

is it password-protected? If not, it's very easy to get on someone else's internet. I sometimes check my e-mails with the neighbors' unprotected account, but if I really wanted I could just as easily download all series of the Simpsons or something like that.

 

And, if it's not password-protected there's not much safety in it for you: if it's used by others, tand pis

[Shendare]

Thorum's post suggests that his understanding is that you're using a wireless connection to the internet. Is that the case, Elgee?

 

I didn't think you were, but it would entirely explain it if you're using an unsecured wireless connection. Those are wide open for neighbors to hop on and use as much as they want.

[Elgee]

Yes I'm using wireless. Sorry, Jon - did I forget to mention that?

 

I have a bit of news, though: I sent an email to my service provider last night, attaching those reports I posted earlier, and reporting bandwidth abuse

 

To report bandwidth abuse, please e-mail abuse@telkomsa.net immediately, attaching your online usage report.

 

I had not received a reply by this morning, but my usual notification said the following:

 

A friendly notification that according to our records your online usage as at [2008-6-3 00:00:01] reflected the following:

 

Username : online956649@dsl.2gbsh.telkomsa.net

Uploaded : 6MB or [0.00GB]

Downloaded : 42MB or [0.04GB]

Combined Total : 49MB or [0.04GB]

Service threshold : 2.00GB

Percentage used : 2.40%

 

Say whaaaaaat ??

 

So I went onto Telkom's site and checked my usage graph there, which said that my usage for Sunday was .... 0 %

 

hmmm ... interesting.

 

 

[Shendare]

They may have gone ahead and reset your allocation as a result of the abuse report after a quick case-by-case review.

 

If your wireless connection is unsecured, that's 100% what's causing the problem. Anyone with a wireless-enabled computer can hop on your connection any time they want and download/upload to their heart's content.

 

Securing the connection is a one-time process, and will make it so that nobody can "piggyback" on your network and use up your bandwidth.

 

The website for your wireless router vendor likely has a handy walkthrough wizard or step-by-step PDF you can work through. It's not exceedingly difficult, but you have to follow the steps to do it correctly, and it's slightly different for each vendor or product.

[Elgee]

Jhae's husband tried to walk me through it last night, but I ended up having a TOTALLY unsecure wireless connection this morning, so obviously we fubarred somewhere ... lol

 

hmmm ... ask my service provider for help, heh? Those same people who set it up for me the way it is now? ... I don't THINK so !

 

Where the he** is my FBW when I need him? *throws a tantrum*

 

[Shendare]

Oh, your ISP isn't likely to be the biggest help in securing the connection, I totally agree.

 

However, if the router itself, the little box with the antenna that sends the signal to your computer, is from a large enough brand (Linksys, Netgear, Cisco, Belkin, etc.), you'll be able to go to the manufacturer's website and get the specific step-by-step instructions based on the unit's model number.

[Elgee]

I think Tom got hold of the manual, but it doesn't help that he has an undercover blonde (moi) trying to follow his instructions on this side.  ::)

[Thorum]

Let him try.

 

You can keep from laughing till he fails, I hope?

[Elgee]

uhm ... the undercover blonde would be me, hon  ;D

[Thorum]

I got that :D I meant you should let him try to follow his own instructions, while you leave the pc for a while.

 

Most Toms work better that way.