You may remember, if you read this blog regularly (that’ll be you, D), at the end of April I had a small problem with my Belkin router. No, well you can read about it here.

So, since then I’ve been exposed. Very exposed. But was I worried? Well, frankly, not really. After all, if a couple of people are also using my cheap ISP (I’m now with Infostrada aka Libero) what the hell?

However I read this about someone getting arrested for using someone else’s open wireless router and I thought I wonder if there’s a way to see who IS using the wireless router that I pay for, just out of interest?

So I log onto my router and have a quick look. I am gobsmacked! Who the hell are these people? And why do they think they can just use the internet for free?

So then, I thought, surely there must be a way of stopping them from using my facility. Obviously, I’m not going to do what I did last time, am I, Mr Rob let’s-make-it-difficult-for-the-users Falconer? There must be another way. So I have a look around the Belkin router pages. Not as straightforward as it would seem. Ah well, I can always Google it and find a solution. After all, Belkin themselves must have some sort of support website which details how a non-computer-literate person can block certain PCs, which should make it easier for me, given that I do have some knowledge.

So what is there from Belkin? Niente, nada, sfa; not even a hint at a support site. Of course. Stupid me. Given that the last time I ended up speaking to an unintelligible person in a far-away land, who only purported to speak English, one shouldn’t really expect Belkin to have read the post and improved in any way.

It’s nice to see that they are still as crap as they were before.

But, eventually I did manage to work it out for myself.

Just in case it helps, to block clients (PCs to you and me) from accessing the net through your Belkin wireless router, do the following:

1. Sign into your router. I mean you will have password protected it, of course.

2. On the left-hand side, click on the DHCP Client List,. This will give you the following table (more or less).

1. Pick out the PCs that you want to have connected. You should be able to do this quite easily but, if you’re not sure, that’s OK too.

2. From the left menu bar, click on Client IP Filters.

3. Click Add PC from the main page.

4. Type in some sort of description (it’s only for your use later)

5. In the first of the Client PC IP Address boxes, type in the start of the range you want to block (it’s the number following 192.168.2. that you see in the list of PCs above). In the second box type in the last of the range.

1. Example 1. To block 192.168.2.4 only, you would type in ‘4’ in the first box and a ‘4’ in the second box – i.e. 4~4.

2. Example 2. To block say 192.168.2.6 through to 192.168.2.12, type a ‘6’ in the first box and ’12’ in the second – i.e. 6~12. This blocks every computer including the 6 and the 12.

• Under Client PC Service, check (put a tick by clicking in the box) against every type of restriction you wish to impose. In my case I ticked every box as I’m not that keen on allowing them to have access to anything, really.

• Unless you’ve set up Scheduling Rules, you should see the Schedule Rule as Always Blocking.

• Click Apply Changes.

• Continue like this for every PC or range of PCs you wish to stop gaining access through your router.

And that was that. I did test it by entering my computer as one of the blocked ones. I immediately lost all emailing facility and internet access, so it would seem to work. Of course, I shall have to check this every now and then for new interlopers but at least it is done without making a call to some troll whose mother tongue is not English and who has the experience of a new-born baby. Not perfect but better than nothing.

So it’s goodbye to Matteo, Silvi, Cennamo, Francesca, Amerigo and WM Arthur and all the other, less obvious ones. I’ll miss you guys.