Can Neighbors see my websites?

Hi everyone.
I like to think myself above average in knowledge on computers, but im not an expert to any extent. As far as I know, my neighbors aren't either. I use their wi-fi with their permission, and i was recently on facebook looking up some people that I'd prefer no one knew i was revisiting. Is their a SIMPLE way that they could check and see who i was looking at or what, what pictures I clicked on, etc? Im not talking about having to download any software or anything complicated. I recently read another thread with a similar question and everyone who answered talked about "proxy" this and "encryption" that. I literally mean, can they click on Web History on the Owner PC and see my stuff?
Thanks.

 

Nope, highly doubt it once you;

1) Disconnect from their Wi-FI and reconnect choosing "Public" as the type of connection and not Private/Home or Domain/Work.
2) Ensure that "File and Printer" sharing and "Network Discovery" are both set to "disabled/off".

This is assuming they don't have some fancy Firewall/Router that can tell what sites you've been on.

But to see who's FB page you've checked out, no they will need to have physical access to your computer for that....

Further reading; http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Choosing-a-network-location

 

I'm afraid the above poster is mistaken.

If you're connecting to someone else's network, then there's 2 easy ways in which someone can determine what you're looking at - by looking at the URLs you've accessed and by capturing and analyzing webpage data.

1. Looking at the URLs you've visited

Some routers have a feature allowing requests to be logged, so that, for example, parents know what kinds of sites their kids have been visiting. If your neighbor has (and uses) this feature and if you were to visit this thread at exactly 11:30am, your neighbor would see something like this in their log files. Any pictures in this thread, such as the Notebook Review logo at the top left hand corner, get logged too:

Code:

[INFO] Sat Feb 23 2013 11:30:00 Web site http://forum.notebookreview.com/networking-wireless/709511-can-neighbors-see-my-websites.html accessed from 192.168.0.101
[INFO] Sat Feb 23 2013 11:30:02 Web site http://www.notebookreview.com/images/logo.jpg accessed from 192.168.0.101 

2. Capturing and analyzing webpage data

Technically, anyone within range of the wifi connection can do this, not just your neighbors, which is why you should never use any wifi connection unless if you're absolutely sure that it's secure ¹. On an insecure network, someone can just park their car in front of your house (or better yet, your neighbor's house) and start eavesdropping on almost everything ² you and your neighbor see.

¹ Non-technical people tend to have difficulty properly securing a wireless network, especially since they don't realize or understand that WEP and WPA have been cracked and broken, leaving nothing but a false sense of security.
² The only exception would be https sites.

 

Oddly enough both answers are correct. Simple answer is that it can be done but assuming no packet analyzing software is employed and typical router is in place they won't know. That said if they wanted to know they would be able to do that with relative ease.

Personally I wouldn't take such a risk but I'm a bit paranoid.

 

@peon

May I ask what Firewall/Router you are using to pull that information/log about URLs visited?

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While I'm here I should state that I guess I was focusing more on the network file access/viewing aspect of this topic. Which does make my reply somewhat irrelevant to what the OP was asking...nevertheless, those steps provide a way of 'hiding' yourself to some extent. They won't be able to view local files on your computer such as desktop, my documents; nor entire C: drive as a matter of fact...

But Peon is correct that URLs of websites visited can be seen with a decent enough Router w/ logging capabilities...

 

sadly It's pretty easy nowadays, specially within the same network
you could hijack even on an android phone connected to the network.

specially a few years ago when firesheep hit the news.

and yes even my non technical friends learned how to use those apps.

 

The logging feature comes standard with my DIR-655, though it's somewhat hidden. I imagine custom third-party firmwares have even more sophisticated logging capabilities, allowing admins to upload custom scripts/rules specifying exactly what data to log and how to log it.

 

Not to make you any more paranoid than you already are, but if they are monitoring what URLs you've visited then they will undoubtedly see that you also started this thread! Well they could always see this thread and it's content without monitoring you too...