Can ISP's get access to your pc thru your Router?

I have heard from a few people that ISP's can get access to your pc thru your Router, because you Router is connected to your ISP so your ISP has access to it and because the connection between your Router and pc is allways open and free, so there fore they would be able to look right into your computer if they wanted to.


Is this true??

 

No, it's not. Your ISP will often set up their modem/router so they can access its settings but that doesn't give them any more access to your PC than the rest of the internet. This can change if you have to install some ISP provided software in order to get service. It would then be a case of the software giving them access by changing system settings. Otherwise, your ISP does not have access to your PC unless you give it to them.

 

Your ISP can access your internet surfing information at their end.

 

Indeed. From a few court cases I've read about it appears that many of them keep very extensive records of your activities - files, websites, times - everything.

 

Of course they can. Unless if your traffic is encrypted. Then they have to try to hack you. Successful attack is highly unlikely if everything has been done correctly on your part. We're talking about ISP, not about CIA or Mossad.

 

I heard they can see it live if they want to(any traffic going thru their servers), like their looking over your shoulder! at least that's what one of my buddies said, he used to work for comcast and he said you would be surprised at what they can do!

 

There's a big difference between access to your internet traffic and access to your PC. Your ISP does have access to all the traffic that passes through their service. All of your traffic passes through their equipment. In many countries, they're required to keep records of your usage. If your traffic is not encrypted, they could read it if they wanted to. Encrypting all of your traffic does keep your data private, but in todays political climate it may draw attention to you.

If your ISP provides hardware such as a cable or DSL modem, they have access to that, assuming you haven't altered the settings. They do not have access to the PC itself or anything on it. The one exception to this might be some of the cheap ad sponsored services that install adware as part of the service agreement. It's possible that this bundled adware could also contain spyware. Myself, I wouldn't use an internet service that required me to install software.

 

This is what I'm talking about, supposedly they have a way to view it as if they were looking over your shoulder, they don't need to have access to your machine either, its all in reading the traffic, I don't know all the details, its just something I heard from someone I know who used to work at comcast!

All you do is tell them you don't want to use their software and they will give you instructions on how to configure your modem to connect to their servers!

 

Yeah, it's called packet sniffing.

 

Thanks Nitewolf for clearing this up for me, I wasn't to sure on what he called it!

Here is an introduction to those who are not familiar with Packet sniffing!

http://netsecurity.about.com/cs/hackertools/a/aa121403.htm

More info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_sniffer

 

So they can only monitor what's going out of your router in most cases.