How's son bypassing BT wifi time restrictions on his Xbox to play online late at night?

[Waddyuk]

Noticed last few weeks he's been shouting playing games so is online with friends, however he shouldn't be able to at certain times as he's restricted via the BT router admin, any ideas how he's managed to bypass this. He's a sneaky  so can't have him out smarting me. 

I've noticed his Xbox appears 3 times in the devices list in the BT router admin as we named it his name and 2020 on the router with different MAC and IP addresses. Wondering if he is changing MAC address, he's aware enough to google stuff to find out and all his mates are hardcore gamers so they will probably know.

I'm on BT broadband.

[imjolly]

Could he be using a VPN?

You could just turn wifi off and see his reaction

[Waddyuk]

Wifi is used all around the house though.

[licquorice]

Trying to outwit kids with technology is never going to work.

[Keith_Beddoe]

Changing MAC addresses is quite easy on many devices, in fact Apple do it all the time on IOS14, which defeats access controls.

Its also very easy to change it on the Xbox, its a built in feature.

Google "xbox change MAC address"

Eventually the home hub will run out of IP allocations, and then nobody will be able to connect, until you factory reset the home hub.

[Waddyuk]

What does BT router use to ban sending wifi to a device, MAC or IP address?

[Carlusha]

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@Waddyukwrote:

Wifi is used all around the house though.

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Not if, as advised, you turn it off.

You can carry on assuming you are ethernet connected.

[imjolly]

If you do turn off the home wifi to show who is in charge you can always connect to BTWIFI using your BTID and password

[iniltous]

Chances are ( as already stated ) he is ‘spoofing’ the MAC address , and as the WiFi password is known , simply rejoins the network as a new device, so as you ban one MAC address, he simply obtains a new one, he obviously knows you are trying to limit his access , so it shouldn’t surprise him if you tried something more direct, like a physical barrier , removing the device from his room at an agreed time for example 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Waddyuk 

Another  option is to use a different router which has wireless MAC filtering and access controls. The cheapest one costs about £35.

You simply allow the MAC address of all your own devices, plus the current MAC address from his Xbox. All other MAC addresses will not get access.

His MAC address would have the access controls applied, and if he changes the MAC address, he would then lose all access, as the new MAC address would not be in the "allowed" list of devices.