Myterous computer on network

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Dan

I have two PCs at home networked through a router/DSL modem combo. Yesterday
after I surfed online, I noticed under Computers Near Me there was a
computer named "Michael". I had neither such computer and nor could I open
or see the properties for it. Was my home network hacked? Thanks for any
help.
 
Dan said:
I have two PCs at home networked through a router/DSL modem combo. Yesterday
after I surfed online, I noticed under Computers Near Me there was a
computer named "Michael". I had neither such computer and nor could I open
or see the properties for it. Was my home network hacked? Thanks for any

No. You may have been "connected to" but that is not "hacked". If I take a
laptop with a wireless Nic and connect to the Neighbor's wireless LAN I
would not have "hacked" anything, I just "connected" to it.

You "router" is not going to allow anything relating to "Microsoft
Networking" or "Microsoft File & Print Sharing" into the LAN, it just isn't
going to happen,..period. The Network Places Window runs based on "Netbios"
which is non-routable and will not even cross a router (short of a WINS
Server) so nothing is going to show up on it that is not on your LAN in your
same LAN's address range. Your LAN is running RFC Private IP#s which simply
are not even routable on the Internet.

If you have a wireless part to your LAN than it could have come from
anywhere nearby your house. If you don't have anything wireless, then it
had to have been physically pluged into your LAN wiring.
 
As another option, if one was a laptop and travels between work and home,
you can sometimes cache connections which would show up... especially if you
connect with Novell at work.

Otherwise, it was probably someone attaching through wireless or the like;
maybe even AdHoc.
 
Thanks so much for the help.

It was still there last night. I have no wireless and my two PCs are
hard-wired, so is the printer. It's been like that for a while and I am
pretty sure nothing was added to the mix. Is there any place, like IP#, to
check where the mysterious PC is, and eventually delete it? Thanks.
 
I doubt it is a machine in the first place. Machines never show up unless
they are turned on, connected and active, and they disappear as soon as that
is no longer the case. It is probably a workgroup name. Somewhere along the
way you had a machine connected to that network that has that name as the
WorkGroup Name. Once it picks up that name it may linger for a period of
time,...or one of your machines has that as the Workgroup Name, right now,
as we speak, and you don't know about it.
 
Thanks again for the help.

Phillip Windell said:
I doubt it is a machine in the first place. Machines never show up unless
they are turned on, connected and active, and they disappear as soon as that
is no longer the case. It is probably a workgroup name. Somewhere along the
way you had a machine connected to that network that has that name as the
WorkGroup Name. Once it picks up that name it may linger for a period of
time,...or one of your machines has that as the Workgroup Name, right now,
as we speak, and you don't know about it.

--

Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com

Dan said:
Thanks so much for the help.

It was still there last night. I have no wireless and my two PCs are
hard-wired, so is the printer. It's been like that for a while and I am
pretty sure nothing was added to the mix. Is there any place, like IP#, to
check where the mysterious PC is, and eventually delete it? Thanks.


I
open take in
your
 
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