I was away from home earlier today and I got a ring notification that someone was at my door. I answered and he said “hey I live next door, my WIFI is out and I’m trying to finish my homework for school, can I access your WIFI to do my homework?” He looked to be in high school or older and I have never met or talked to him before. I told him no and said sorry.
As he walked away he was taking to himself saying he just wanted to do his homework and went back next door. I actually felt bad for not helping the kid out if it was a legitimate need. Currently I’m not working and my internet is something I make sure I pay so I can use it for job searches and obviously entertainment.
Honestly I’m not comfortable giving out my password to someone I don’t know to use my internet. Also would he continue to want to use it tomorrow or the next day as well? Eventually I’d have to change my password and then would he come back over because he no longer could access it when I did?
AITA for not letting the neighbor boy access my internet and giving him my password as well?
NTA. I wouldn’t do it either
NTA. Better to be safe regarding this and not give access to someone you don’t know. If you don’t know him, but know his parents, you could have asked him to have his parents call you to confirm. It sucks for him, bur your safety is your priority. Though, you could have given him your password and then change it if it’s a kid who needed to do homework.
Nta
There is free internet at the library, coffeeshops, or even walmart. If this person you don’t know does something illegal (like download torrents) you can be responsible since it was your internet.
Plus if you have never seen them- are they a neibor or a hacker?
NTA.
The only reason I’m not judging N A H is that he was pissy about it. When you ask a virtual stranger for a favour, you have to accept no as an answer. Also, his procrastination is not your problem.
NTA
Your reflex is good here. Don’t give people access to your network to avoid feeling guilty.
That being said: Check your router. It may have a “Guest Mode” with either NO password required or a different password. And (of course) you can turn off guest mode at will without altering your network access at all. In that case you could have said “I gotta turn off guest mode after dinner at XXPM, so you have ’til then”. If the question of “why?” comes up, my response would be “your parents never taught you NOT to look a gift horse in the mouth, did they? You sure you want to question the gift rather than accepting it graciously? I could turn it off now if you prefer …”. Which is 100% how such an entitled question would have been answered in my neighborhood “back in the day”. Back when people commented on the “young man’s use of sir and ma’am” being so polite. Dang I’m old.
NTA. He can go to school or the library. Also, who knows who else he may share your internet access with, or reduce your bandwidth while you’re on a phone interview?
Unrelated: Why are schools making homework internet-dependent? That’s shitty.
NAH, *but* I have a guest WIFI for situations like this. It’s a separate network to reduce security risks, and if it’s used for anything untoward then it’s very easy to exonerate yourself as none of your devices are connected to that network. Also means that changing the password isn’t a big deal because you don’t have to sign back in on everything.
If you know your neighbours, I’d have shot them a text to confirm their internet was out and gone from there. That said, you’re not an arsehole for declining and he’s not an arsehole for asking.
NTA.
Kid might have been grounded from the home wifi for whatever reason. It happens. It doesn’t make sense for him to go to a stranger instead of his folks if he needed wifi.
Even if that’s not the case, it’s a bit rude to introduce yourself to your neighbor just to ask them for something. Your concerns are legit and to add, giving someone your wifi password could be a liability (privacy and what he may actually use it for come to mind).
“No” is probably the best thing you coulda said here.
We shared our wifi with tenants who used a month’s worth in 5 days downloading from restricted sites, and almost got our access cancelled, from the only provider that we could get in the rural area we were in.
Because of my past experience, I would never share wifi with anyone again.
He may be perfectly fine though.
The guy who suggested talking to the parents and giving the kid a short time frame (2hrs) and then changing the password probably has a good idea.
If you want to give him short-term access, and don’t know how to set up a separate guest access, it’s better to change the pw, first, let him use the new password for 2 hours or whatever, and then change it back to your old one. Otherwise you’ll have to update all your devices with the new password. We made that mistake once after the telecom techs installing our new router asked if we wanted to change/update our password while we were are it, and since it had been ages since it was updated, we said sure. As soon as they left, we realized that for 4 people, between computers, phones, tablets, kindles, consoles, etc., there were like 30 devices to enter the new pw on!
NAH I wouldn’t do it either. I know people who got in trouble with this, because the whole family illegally downloaded movies.
In case he’s telling the truth, he’s not the ah for asking. If you did want to help, there’s a way of doing a guest access which prohibits downloading etc.
NTA BRO
When our WiFi has been down, we run hotspots off our phones. My kids can do most of their homework on an i-device. Your neighbor’s son likely could have done either one of those things.
I’m also going to say: The kid said he wanted to do homework, but there’s non-zero chance he had other motives. What if he was just asking for your WiFi because his parents had told him “no more Internet today”? What if he accessed something inappropriate, and now you’re facing his litigious parents?
NTA.
Thank you all for telling me about the guest mode option! It certainly would’ve helped out today.