Workgroup on DSL seeing other workgroups outside the bldg

[dmchall]

I ran into something that really perplexes me. While browsing my Network Neighborhood on my SINGLE workgroup, I found four other workgroups listed not familiar to me. Attempting to explore the unfamiliar workgroups, I was actually able to drill down into directories AND files on two of the four workgroups. The one I recognised is a business 3 miles from mine.

How is this possible? The DSL company is new in town and I'm one of their first customers. My system receives IP via DHCP from the ASDL 'modem' which has a built in firewall. I do not remember seeing these extra workgroups and computers before Friday.

Any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

Unbind Netbios over TCP/IP and try using Netbui instead. If you still see the other workgroups than your DSL connection is not being done properly. You are being assigned a subnet with a network segment using at least Class B masks.

Place a DSL hardware router between the modem and your LAN, and you can then go back to whatever protocols you were using originally.

 

[dmchall]

bcastner,
You were right! Ultimately, it turned out the DSL modem was not setup properly. When it was configured (by the DSL company),it was setup so that IPs were given from their computer thus putting us on the same subnet. Funny, but only a few clients could see each other. Reconfiguring the modem properly put us each on our own subnet.
Thank you for the help!

 

[bcastner]

Glad you got it all sorted.

What a serious security problem otherwise!