myahact@yahoo.ca wrote:
 
> The internet connection is from a Cable TV company so the wire is 
> a cable and not a phone line. Is there a LAN to sniff in that case?

The LAN is the wired portion of your network that exists between the
modem and the router and between the router and any devices connected
via ethernet cables.  The modem and router can (in many cases) be a
combined unit.

The wire that gives you an internet connection (coax cable or phone-line
dsl) is not considered as part of your LAN.  It is sometimes called the
WAN.  Evesdropping on the WAN is never done by casual hackers - it is
far to technically difficult to do.

> > Can the landlord place this wifi router in a secure location
> 
> I'll have to ask. He did say that sometimes the router needs to
> be reset, so that would be a problem if it was locked away.

Yes, although the power cord or power brick could be placed in an
accessible location that would enable anyone to unplug and replug it so
as to reset the router.

> However what would it change if it was locked away? I would think
> that if the tenant is intent on hacking me he doesn't need physical
> access to the router. Can he hack me by tampering with the hardware?

A router typically has several LAN connections on it (usually 4) that
you can connect (via ethernet cable) another computer (desktop or laptop
computer).  That computer would therefore have direct access to the data
passing from the router to the modem, and software like wireshark can
allow that data to be seen.  Some of that data will be encrypted, and
some won't be.

If the router (and modem) are in a physically secured location such that
nobody can plug in another computer to one of the router's ethernet LAN
ports, then the only other way that someone can evesdrop on your
communications is by monitoring the wifi signals being sent and received
by your computer, and those communications are (or can be) heavily
encrypted.

Sometimes the modem is a combination modem and wifi router (so there
would be no separate wifi router) so in that case it would be the modem
that would have to be placed in a secure location.
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2