Dish should be more secure than cable.

I have never had a problem with cable and have used it for years. Of course there may be a difference depending on which cable company you have in your area. My neighbor has dish and she hates it but would have to pay $185 to get out of her contract. She had all kinds of viruses on her PC.

We have had road runner internet for years and never had any trouble. Friend has hughes net I think it is if that's satellite and she hated it is all I know but her only other choice way out where she lives is dial up so she ended up getting a tablet with Verizon service and is much happier. Mary

Why are you concerned about internet and phone security?

I have the same question as snidely. You should be focusing on having a robust anti-virus system installed regardless of how you connect to your ISP, rather than hoping that one form of hookup is (marginally) more secure than another.

I agree with the last two posters. No one internet service is more or less secure than another since all but dialup are "always on" services. It is the home user who is responsible for maintaining proper security on his/her devices.

If you have any other option over satelite internet - TAKE IT!!

My only option is Satellite internet and it is not only very expensive - it is very limited. We are capped at 10 GB/month and that can go pretty fast if you have more than one user in the house or plan on streaming any video or even watching youtube videos.

Once you hit your cap - you are slowed down to about the speed of dialup internet.

They are not very forthcoming on this and make it sound like you have all the usage you want.

There is no difference in security. Internet is internet.

Cable is a shared thing with your neighbors.. that's why people complain the download speed slows when prime time arrives.
So from a security standpoint, its pretty much like having all your neighbors on your Local Area Network. And some of the other computers are probably trying to connect to you, even by accident while trying to do their own in house network.

We have time warner road runner here, the middle of the line speed what ever that is and I never have slow downs at peak times and it always runs smooth. Mary

Mine are always the same speed. My cable company has 3 speeds or cable, mine is the cheapest and it's plenty fast for me.

I've always thought security was up to the user, not the server. I don't think any of my neighbors are smart enough to be hackers. If they hack into mine by design or just stumble in, it's my fault and it's never happened yet.

"So from a security standpoint, its pretty much like having all your neighbors on your Local Area Network."

I'm not an expert on data transmission but what I've heard contradicts what you've said. What's your source for this comment? I'm often wrong about lots of things, I love to learn new things especially when what I think I understand is wrong.

Most home networks have one hardware firewall (the router) and two software ones (the OS and the networking protocols). A determined expert hacker into my network is likely to stumble upon my favorite music playlists and my collection of music and photos. IE, nothing I'mconcerned about. That should be true for most people.

Seems to be lots of cable users around that don't use a router so they are putting faith in the modem having some protection & most will have docsis if the kid hasn't turned it off along with the windows firewall off in his quest for lowest latency for his shoot-them-up game.

Your windows computer on your home network, you only need to worry about the wife or kids on the lan deleting your files or C drive by accident or because they got mad at you. or rare but maybe them catching one of the network crawling virus's and it coming to visit your computer on the in house lan.

Yes a proper firewall tries to protect you from the otherside. I've seen more firewalls turned off than on - usually because somebody couldn't load their favorite game.

You're saying Docsis can be turned off and the modem will continue to pass signals?

Back to the first question, please tell me how a neighboring cable user can access another person's home network.

As far as I know they can't without a password. My neighbor used mine when her service was down, I gave her the pass word. I check the wireless networks around me every once in awhile. So far they are all protected and signals for most are very weak.

Emma, I think he was suggesting unauthorized access down the wire, not through the wifi signal. I don't think that's possible as he suggests, but maybe he'll enlighten us.

Thank you snidely.

I think anyone with kids or adults that are in some kind of addiction with online games or coupons or other high need favorite sites knows that the evil modem might be the culprit that slows them down, or blocks them at times their addiction needs an on online fix.

I'm surprised snidely isn't aware of how easily security is turned off .. with cable the neighborhood is essentially nothing more or less than a shared lan connection.

"with cable the neighborhood is essentially nothing more or less than a shared lan connection"

Please leave out the innuendo, Mikie. My understanding is that bandwidth is shared but that each distinct cable modem communicates in an encrypted way point to point to the head office - ie, no visibility or ability to connect to other signals travelling on the same pathways.

I could be wrong, let me know if so. Thanks.

first item that I see on a simple quick yahoo search... its a dslr forum. A well respected website. http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r27405910-Cable-modem-can-see-neighbors

This post was edited by mikie on Mon, Sep 9, 13 at 15:07

Most interesting reading, Mikie. Seems the cable configuration is the key to privacy here. So, not to take chances, use a router. Am I reading this correctly?

Forgot how to edit. What I meant was a router with proper security (WAP/WAP2).

C'mon Mikie, this is silly. Yes, Broadband reports is a legit website, but this wasn't an item they reported, it was a forum post. Forums have no reputation, they're forums.

Secondly, if you read more than the first few sentences of a page full of comments, you'll find what was alleged was viewed as an aberration caused by a rare configuration error. Indeed, it's mentioned that the Docsis standard provides security.

Grandms, what mikie is suggesting (but not substantiating) and that I remain unconvinced of, is that there is a security risk down the wire. WPA is security for a Wifi signal, something completely different.

Whew.