Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Curious Case of Lovemonkey

One of my neighbors has no internet because of me. Allow me to explain. Last night after book club, and too many glasses of red wine, (so much for that feeling of pure detoxification I was after) I came home and decided it was a good time to hook up our new internet and router. I got the CD going and started up the instructions, all the while not noticing that my computer had automatically logged on to a neighbor's wireless by the name of Lovemonkey.

With all that wine in my system, I also failed to realize that when I went to http://168.192.2.1 to set up the password that the screen said Belkin, not US Robotics as it should have for my modem. Then, being in a bit of a stupor and feeling very determined to hook up the internet, but not entirely knowing what I was doing, I proceeded to do something that generated a WEP key. How magically techy! Of course, I did not write the WEP key down. And the next moment, I no longer had internet and Lovemonkey had a brandnew password. A password I had assigned yet did not know. Oops! By the time I understood what I had done, it was too late. Lovemonkey was under lock and key.

It occured to me this morning that it might be a good idea to figure out whose apartment emits the Lovemonkey signal and tell them what I did. But the thought of explaining the whole ordeal to a total stranger and informing them they'll need to reset their modem and reconfigure their network is wholly unappealing. They'll figure it out soon enough.

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