Someones phone was connected to my network! Why and how?

[orbs80]

Hi Guys,

Update for you after a hard slog out with Windows 8

Disable the 'HomeGroup Provider' Service in Administrator Tools in Control Panel and let me know your findings.

If you make use of the HomeGroup then this will be an issue but if you don't use it, it should stop these ghost devices appearing.

I have no use for the HomeGroup but I am swaying on the logic there is a bug in the service somewhere.

 

[MrBreaker]

Hi Guys,

Update for you after a hard slog out with Windows 8

Disable the 'HomeGroup Provider' Service in Administrator Tools in Control Panel and let me know your findings.

If you make use of the HomeGroup then this will be an issue but if you don't use it, it should stop these ghost devices appearing.

I have no use for the HomeGroup but I am swaying on the logic there is a bug in the service somewhere.

Seems like a very dirty workaround... I hope MS will address this issue asap.

Ok, I've disabled the 'HomeGroup Provider' service and made sure it's not running, but the devices still pop up...

 

[orbs80]

That's pretty pants

MS have passed all the information on to HQ anyway so I guess it'll be fixed in the first service pack

Basically, they don't know what is causing it and have no real answers, although disabling the HomeGroup Provider worked for me it isn't working for you. Most odd.
Also doing a cross comparison with Windows 7 Networking and Windows 8 there is not much difference on the surface apart from the way the HomeGroup works and the fact you can no longer switch between Public, Home and Work Network scenarios.

You'd think they would have at least have been able to tell you what processes/services are used to automatically populate the Network section in File Explorer. I hate the way they are not proactive with updates to fix issues and collate them for a later cumulative update or even wait for a service pack.

 

[exeuser]

Just to confirm disabling homegroup has worked for me too.

 

[exeuser]

Forget what i put above, disabling homegroup has made no difference.

 

[orbs80]

Forget what i put above, disabling homegroup has made no difference.

Yeah, after a day or so they all came back on mine as well. I think MS need to look further in to this and it seems to be full of theory at the moment.
Oddly though I only get 2 devices on mine. not both together but 1 or the other. n0xx and nakasi. I also have 2 Blackberry devices connected to my router. Although the MAC addresses do not match between these ghost devices and my physical Blackberry devices and the information is completely out it could be that Windows 8 is misinterpreting the devices as the Blackberry devices I have cannot connect to Windows wirelessly and need to be connected via USB.

Microsoft has mentioned to me that the Network and HomeGroup in Windows 8 feeds from information from the connected devices in the router.

Again this is just a theory and I doubt currently we will get any definitive answers apart from someone cracking it and solving why these devices are appearing.

*UPDATE*

LT30P has also appeared as some of you have experienced and I believe this is the Sony Experia S that has recently come out. The trend seems to be they are all brand new devices recently on the market.

 

[r2r]

hello same here, m0xx samsung device, iv got virgin superhub as well , seems like in my case the device changes its mac everyday, ( so far by now 3 days in a raw) bloody ms spunks

 

[BARSI]

Same here i am also running virgin superhub and m0xx appears in my network screen its mac changed between: 5c:0a:5b:c1:de:8b and 88:30:8a:39:6d:6d.

 

[petseven]

Hello All,

I am also experiencing the same mystery devices on my network labelled m0xx, Viera, and Nakasi. I wrote to Microsoft about this and received a reply from their tech support. According to Tech support, the devices that I am seeing are all android devices already on the network and what I (we) are seeing is the software the devices use to communicate, hence the randomness. With Windows 8, the default is to show everything that is on your network, where previous versions of Windows - Vista and 7, the device chatter was previously suppressed.

*edit* Nakasi

 

[chev65]

This problem has been around since Windows 7 with devices connected to your neighbors WiFi showing up in either the network map with Windows 7 or on the device list with Windows 8.

It does NOT mean that someone has hacked into your network. It's just showing locally connected devices that aren't necessarily connected to your network. It's not a security leak.

 

[Bookbox]

Hey all,

After much investigation as I had the same issue. This ended being my Sky Box, but for Virgin Media customers this could well be their boxes connected to routers via ethernet.

Check your router administration pages for 'Attached Devices', likely to see a wired device attached.

Hope this helps!

 

[karma mechanic]

So where are we on this?

I've got a Virgin Superhub in modem mode, with a D-Link DIR-655 as the router.
Over the last few days I've noticed spurious devices as follows:
enrc2b (HTC One X+)
m0xx (Samsung S3)
occam (Nexus 4)
Blaze (TI Blaze - shown in 'Other devices'))

The router is using WPA2-Personal with a good password. I've changed it anyway, and also reset the router to factory defaults. Still getting ghost devices on two Win 8 laptops.

Next door had visitors with an HTC One X and a Samsung S3 during December, and there is a Nexus 7 next door.

A previous post suggests that these spurious devices are simply on another network. Which sounds very wrong.
It was also suggested that something is misinterpreting a real device and adding it as one of these ghosts.

Anyway, I found this forum since I'd been looking everywhere to see what is going on. My first post!

 

[Mystere]

Are you certain that none of the computers on your network have an "ad-hoc" network setup? This would allow others to connect to your internet through one of your other computers.

 

[karma mechanic]

Are you certain that none of the computers on your network have an "ad-hoc" network setup? This would allow others to connect to your internet through one of your other computers.

I'm certain - at this moment I'm using a Dell laptop with a wired connection, and the only other things on the network are a NAS and a Squeezebox SB3 - both wired. I can see a phone called 'Blaze' with an odd MAC address.

(pause)

And now it has gone away.

(pause)

And it is there again.

Although the ghost devices vary I've never ever seen more than one present. Which makes me think it is a misinterpretation of something that is there all the time, maybe something messed up with an ipv6 response from something that is already seen in ipv4. The MAC addresses don't match those associated to real manufacturers like Samsung etc.

On one day it will be one ghost name, on another it might be a different ghost, they are usually there for hours at a time with the same name, then a different one appears.

I'm going to try some more experiments...

 

[Ex_Brit]

As long as your connection point is encrypted and therefore protected you should be all right. I see many strange entities on my wireless network which I use for my iPad and Nexus tablets. It just means they are polling for a signal in the area and not necessarily connected. If you are using an encrypted connection with a nice, complicated pass key then you should be fine.

 

[karma mechanic]

Since my last post I turned wireless off on the router.

A few minutes later, and after refreshing the network view, I got:
http://www.infrared.webspace.virginmedia.com/Other Pictures/slides/NetworkListWirelessOff.jpg

So whatever it is it appears to be completely spurious. I'd love to know what Windows is doing such that it says 'ooh look, a device'.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Well it will see any device that's within range. When I have to occasionally reconnect my Bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse, I always see a whole bunch of (I assume) my neighbours' devices. That doesn't mean they are connected, just within range.
If you aren't using a wireless connection for anything then by all means turn it off. It just eats power for no reason in that case.
I use a wired connection for my PC's, Smart TV and Blu-ray Player and wireless for everything else, mostly the portable stuff.

 

[karma mechanic]

Well it will see any device that's within range.

But the above was with wireless off. Bluetooth is off anyway. So the ghost devices are not actually via wireless.
I'm still leaning towards the idea that they are a corrupted version of an existing device, so I'll unplug a few cables and see what happens...


**edit**

I unplugged everything from the router except the laptop. Wireless is off on the router.
After a few refreshes of the network view I got the 'Blaze' device showing again. Just me, the router and that device
Wireless is off on the laptop as well.
I give up.

 

[Ex_Brit]

That could well be the case, or they literally could be ghosts, not actually there.

 

[dragonballz2k]

Does Somebody if this a person trying to connect. I can't find it on my router, and does anybody else get this one