Virus Or Worm... bandwidth affected?

[Cyber_Specter]

I've been using a wireless signal i got off the neighbor or a local business I'm not sure which, but there is no security installed and I'm close enough to get full signal most of the time... but all of the sudden my browsing has been hindered to an extreme.. pages load in 3-5 minutes instead of a few seconds and i can't stream video at all anymore. I still have full signal and connectivity. Could a virus or worm affect my browsing by tapping resources or simply slow it down on purpose? If there are such evil programs how would i detect and expel them? i don't have enough experience to do it myself, at least not effectively so where can i get a program to find these nasties if they do in fact exist. My only other thought would be that the people that own the signal found out Ive been using it. Then decided to somehow limit my bandwidth but they would have to really have to know what they are doing and in my current area i highly doubt anyone would do that, besides why not just add security and shut me out completely .... it just doesn't make sense.

Oh and I've tried spybot s&d

[fiftysixer]

could be they changed service plans (dialup? )

Most likely it's either they're limiting you (are they tech-savvy?), or their computers are eating all the bandwidth. Try connecting to a different internet connection with your computer and see if it's still slow.

[Cyber_Specter]

Okay i'm pretty sure that my neighbors are not tech savy ... no im damn sure of it thier old and as for their computer eating bandwidth im only online during the hours in which these extremely old people would be asleep so thats not it either and lastly if i had another internet connection i wouldn't have this problem.

so can anyone accually tell me something usefull ...come on man your a moderator (you should know more than most here presumably) and im not stupid iv'e run all the senarios in my head and like i said JUST DOESNT MAKE SENSE PLEASE CAN SOMEONE THINk OUTSIDE THE BOX AND HELP ME HERE

[godofcereal]

Stealing old peoples internet! Well shame on you sir!

[Spectre557]

There's no need to think outside the box... and certainly no need for all-capitals.

@ godofcereal: They're old, they don't need it!

Seriously though... if your connection is faster on a different network, then it's obviously a problem exclusive to that network. Since it's so slow, they've probably downgraded quality, or someone else is also on their network; is it unencrypted? Or possibly it's a problem on the ISP end of things, but you can hardly do anything about that.

[Cyber_Specter]

ok there's something i havent thought about yes they might have downgraded quality. thanks spectre you come througfh again has anyone heard of bandwidth stealing virusus or worms though i can entertain that its any of what spectre said which im now leaning twards but iv'e done a little reaserch and these worms and viruses do exist so anyonw know about them?

[Spectre557]

ok there's something i havent thought about yes they might have downgraded quality. thanks spectre you come througfh again has anyone heard of bandwidth stealing virusus or worms though i can entertain that its any of what spectre said which im now leaning twards but iv'e done a little reaserch and these worms and viruses do exist so anyonw know about them?

No problem. But capital letters please, respect my OCD!

As far as I know, the only way most malware would restrict your bandwidth is if either they were:
- Programmed specifically to change your settings to cap download/upload speeds (unlikely)
- Doing downloads/uploads without your permission (more likely IMO, probably spyware)
- Hijacking your bandwidth to contribute to a DDoS (I'm really not sure on this one, don't know enough about it to be certain).

If you're concerned it could realistically be malware, then it'd be a good idea to get yourself some serious security software. Or better yet, switch to Linux (I'm assuming you're on Windows). As far as security software goes, I would thoroughly recommend ESET Smart Security (NOD32). It's unintrusive, so you don't get popups every 10 seconds asking if you want Firefox or BF2 to be blocked, and silly things like that, but at the same time it's powerful and efficient, and has yet to fail to detect malware since I've used it.

[tgoe]

Perhaps it's good ol' interference. Maybe you/they bought a new gadget that ruins your connection?
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/252595/baby-monitors-killing-urban-wifi.html

[macrocat]

Stealing old peoples internet! Well shame on you sir!

Agreed. One thing I'd never do would be to victimize the elderly. Something just feels wrong about it

[Spectre557]

Stealing old peoples internet! Well shame on you sir!

Agreed. One thing I'd never do would be to victimize the elderly. Something just feels wrong about it

What they don't know can't hurt them. Besides, they're very unlikely to actually need all that bandwidth, it would be a shame to waste it.