Solved How did my Dell know my LAN Password?

[alphanumeric]

When I first mentioned it, it was more of a hunch, as I hadn't actually tested it completely myself. My laptop is never tethered, I only ever use a wireless connection at home with it. For it to sync it has to connect over my WIFI. To do that I have to enter the WIFI password. By the time I log in for the first time my user picture, wallpaper, etc is already changed and synced. When I open IE all my favorites are there. The list goes on, depending on what you have selected to sync. I think its a great feature, especially if you log into more than one PC like I do. I'm on my desktop PC at the moment. Once things warm up outside I'll take my laptop out on my deck. There are some things I turn off, tile layout being one of them. If I don't my desktop PC and laptop will play rearrange the tiles because the screen sizes are different. Anyway, thank you for going the extra mile and testing that out Kari. I was mulling over how to do it without reinstalling Windows from scratch. Now I don't have to, thanks again. :thumb:

 

[Kari]

Anyway, thank you for going the extra mile and testing that out Kari. I was mulling over how to do it without reinstalling Windows from scratch. Now I don't have to, thanks again. :thumb:

You have nothing to thank. My slightly arrogant response to your post was not OK, of course I had to check this out. I owe you, mate .

As one of my ex-wives often said (I think it was #3?): "You are not often right, Kari, but this time you are wrong!"

 

[alphanumeric]

:thumb:

 

[strollin]

So RonRock, do you have any other Win 8.x machines? Do you use an MS account to login to your Win 8.x machines? Did you connect your tablet at least once to the internet prior to trying to connect to your work or home router? If so, it seems it's possible your router pw was synced to your new tablet.

 

[alphanumeric]

Inquiring minds want to know?

 

[RonRock]

Sorry for the late response. For some reason I am not getting notice of replies to my thread, although I have set the forum to automatically email replies. So I figured this had been determined that I was mistaken on the computers behavior. So from a quick glance of the recent post it looks as though there is more to the password situation that I questioned about.

As another bit of evidence to the issue, I did notice my new laptop (WIN 8.1) have a popup notice that it had found a "new" network connection. That had a name that was presumably my Samsung S4 phone. I say presumably because it had the name of Samsung, but an IP that I did not check out. I was on my home LAN, it found a device with the name of Samsung, so I approved it and moved on.

So it now seems that others are experiencing similar password experience? Is that correct? Is the password protection not as dependable as I/We believe?

I will be sure to keep a closer eye on this thread. If there is more to the story, I would like to know.

 

[strollin]

The protection is dependable BUT if the conditions existed that I posted in my previous post (you have other Win 8.x machines, you use an MS account, logged in to the router using one of those machines with pw previously) then your router pw may have been synced to your new tablet. However, you would have needed to connect to the internet with your new tablet at least once for anything to get synced.

Here's a possible scenario: You have a laptop running Win 8.x using an MS account. You connected to your home router and entered in the pw there so that it is stored on the laptop. You take that laptop to work, login to the router there, also entering the pw and it stores that pw. Those pws, along with other settings, are stored in your MS account.

You get your new tablet and login to that with the same MS account and connect to the internet (someplace other than either your home or work). The 2 router pws (home & work) get synced to the new tablet via the MS account. Now, when you connect to either your home or work routers, the new tablet already knows the pws so you are not prompted to enter them.

 

[martienne]

Yes, exactly. Once you set up that online MS profile, you are sharing a ton of things to the entire world.
A colleague of mine shared a somewhat embarassing picture of herself by accident, after logging on to her MS account from work - it synched her home pic with the account at work.

And also, don't forget, password schmarschword.... It's nothing to the NSA. If they don't already have a password, they can crack it, use a backdoor or wring the arm of the vendor to let them access. The only person you are keeping out from a LAN, is Joe Blow who happens to be cruising around looking for open networks.

Sorry if i seem cynical, but I am still following the Snowden revelations, and I live in the big brother capital of the the world.
Privacy is practically dead, unless you go to extreme lengths to protect it.

 

[RonRock]

I am sure that the scenario that you suggest strollin is exactly what happened. With my new laptop as well as my tablet the first thing I had to do is sign onto my Microsoft account. It automatically opens to the Microsoft sign in on boot. I didn't give it much thought being new to WIN 8, I figured that was part of the OS. I never guessed it would be so free willy with my passwords.

 

[adamf]

I never guessed it would be so free willy with my passwords.

You can turn off this synching though - see alphanumeric's picture in post #15

 

[strollin]

I personally don't care for the syncing feature of using an MS account on Win 8.x machines which is one reason why I use a local account instead.

 

[alphanumeric]

I like it, it does have its advantages for those that want to make use of them. You can turn parts of it off or all of it off.