not a real good idea at all, I would never allow that, first you are breaking the rules of your contract with your ISP and second yes they have full access to your network meaning your all of your pc's.

Nice is good but that is going past nice, you have to keep your self protected, not only is your neighbor able to access the network but anyone else around there also if you do not have it set up with wireless protection active.

Hope you do not have any credit card info on that pc or your social security info, and banking. I personally would pull the plug asap.

Are my searches open as well as emails ?
Thanks for the help.
salbwil

the problem is that you don't know what they may have installed on your network, they have full access to your network, how secure do you have each pc? if they decided to put a keylogger on they know every password and every word you type as you type it. It is extremely risky and makes it quite tempting to the other person and people are just naturally snoops.

the real problem lies in all the other people driving by that also have access and you know nothing about them!

She's a young girl ( librarian) and trustworthy, but I see what you are saying. What exactly is a keylogger and if I continue to allow her to use my connection, what is my best protection? I do use the computer for online banking and various purchases over the internet.
Thank you,
salbwil

you do understand you are breaking the terms of your ISP?

You need to set up your network securely blocking all outside access, no matter how trustworthy you feel a person is do you really want to give them that kind of access? If you insist you do regardless of the warnings then you could limit access to your network to only the computers whose mac address you have set to allow in the router and use the strongest security settings available in your router.

How to Secure Your Wireless Network
The ABCs of securing your wireless network
Wireless Router Security

and to me the young ones are the most dangerous, ever heard of script kiddies?

as to what is a keylogger it is exactly what it says it logs every single key you strike on your pc and passes the info on to whomever has it set up, so if you do banking it captures your banking user name and password if you use credit cards it captures that info etc. they are quite stealthy and hard to detect but easy to get just try a quick google.
Keystroke logging

and remember with an unsecure wireless network you have lots of people that can be looking in to your network not just the person you seem to trust, there is an entire "cult" if you will that do this for entertainment it is called wardriving they drive around with laptops looking for unsecure networks to jump on, then they put out your address on their websites and many times put marks on sidewalks to let everyone know you have an unsecure network that is open for the picking.
go to google now and search for wardriving, it is quite educational.

Here is a link that might be useful: what is a keylogger

Sheesh, how alarmist can we be? Sharing some signal from a wireless router in your home is no big deal. Also, she cannot "see what you're doing" in any way unless you're giving her access to your own computer (which I'm sure you're not).

The main issue would be if you have a home network set up in such a way that "file sharing" is turned on (which most folks don't).

Question: "Are my searches open as well as emails?"

Answer: Not at all.

Another thing. Put a password on your wireless connection, then share it with your tenant.

Anyone on a single network if they are a little techie can capture the data streams and decode it. But it takes quite a bit of time to read through everthing. Most network shares of course they can acess.

Most people aren't crooks though is my opinion. As long as the wifi is secured with a passkey and router has a non default password login/access you should be fine.

Here's a link to a simple small program that seems to protect against keyloggers;

Here is a link that might be useful: Simple Freeware - popular anti-keylogger.

Thank you all,
salbwil

Raven, I have often wondered about using passwords and credit card for purchasing online. I do not store my CC number or passwords on my PC. After you use them are they still on your computer. I know with key logger, they can get them, but what about without that.

"Nothing is totally safe. But with a little common sense, online bill paying is as safe or safer than sending a check in the mail. look for the yellow padlock- but some rogue sites may try to fool you. In addition to the padlock, the web address should start with https instead of http.

NEVER let a site store your credit card information so that it will be easier next time you shop. There have been numerous times when bad guys hack into business servers and steal hundreds of thousands credit card numbers at one time.

NEVER click on a link for payment in an email sent to you- you don't really know where you are going. You should always initiate the payment from your computer so that you are sure where it is going.

Use PayPal if it is available. That goes against one of my previous suggestions because you have to trust PayPal with your account number, but nobody else you deal with gets the number- just the money.

NEVER use a public computer or a public WiFi point for business, someone could be monitoring the network.

If your credit card offers virtual numbers, use them for online purchases. Virtual numbers are numbers that link to your credit card but are only good for 1 transaction.

Use a credit card with a low limit for online purchases. It is better to have a $500 limit card hijacked than a $5000 card.

NEVER answer an email that asks for personal bank information. Such emails will start with something like "Dear Wells Fargo customer" then ask you to verify account information. If it really came from your bank, it would have your name after the "Dear." No real bank or credit card company will ask you to verify anything by email. If in doubt, call the 800 number on the back of the credit card and ask."
Source: http://www.help2go.com/forum/computer-help/index2.html

homebound perhaps you failed to notice I did give LINKS/instruction for securely setting up a wireless router and network and did in fact urge them to use mac address filtering to include the tenants pc. Passwords can be brute force cracked in little time since most people use real word passwords and not highly secure passwords.
Strong passwords: How to create and use them
Secure Password Generator
and to really get the point across look at how quickly passwords are cracked
Password Recovery Speeds

Unless we know exactly how a person has their pc secured, if they even in fact have any type of password on their admin account, or if they have file sharing on or off then we have to err on the side of caution, and having an unsecured wireless network is something to be concerned about no matter who you are, why ask for problems when they can simply be avoided by setting up the network properly and securely?

I, sitting here in my home, can turn on my laptop and find a multitude of unsecured networks I can jump on, if I chose to be a nefarious character and use many of the tools easily available to me on the internet I definitely could gather some info that I am sure none of those people would want floating about. But to each their own. I do want to take the steps to try to keep my pc secure.

How do I put a password on my wireless connection ?
Thanks, salbwil

You mean a password on router, see link below..

Here is a link that might be useful: set-up-linksys-wireless-router

have you looked at any of the links I have provided you in the beginning? it tells step by step how to do all of those things including putting passwords in the router and setting up mac address filtering. Before you do the password you need to look over the links I provided about creating strong passphrases.