wireless network address and padlock has gone

[soandso]

I have an Intel Mac and a wireless connection to the net. I have an Airport Extreme Base Station 54 mbps and a Netgear ADSL modem dm602. I shared the connection with my old neighbour and we had an address and password, which I think allowed only us to access the network.

For some reason my network address has vanished from the pop up window under the Internet signal sign (top right of screen). I can see two of my new neighbours home hub addresses, which are padlocked, but my connection seems to be called something like apple gaje33 but there is no padlock. I can access the web on this.
Can someone please tell me what has happened and what I should do about it please? Where has my network name gone and why has this new address appeared? is it ok to have no padlock and what should I do (step by step no techy talk please) Can someone else be accessing this connection. I am scared of “having a go “ as I’ll probably do it wrong and lose my Internet connection)- can someone help please. Thanks.

 

[Mpulsive81]

Sounds as if your AE Base station was reset back to factory defaults. When it gets reset, the new network name becomes "Apple Network XXXXXX". If there's no padlock and you can get on without a password, then so could anyone else. Your network hasn't "gone anywhere", rather the name of it has just been reset. I would log into your AE router and update the settings or just reset the base station back to default and start from scratch. Here is a link for more information on it.

Once it's reset, you can start from scratch and change the name of the network again and assign the password you want (just like you did the first time around)

 

[soandso]

wireless network address and padlock has gone

Sounds as if your AE Base station was reset back to factory defaults. When it gets reset, the new network name becomes "Apple Network XXXXXX". If there's no padlock and you can get on without a password, then so could anyone else. Your network hasn't "gone anywhere", rather the name of it has just been reset. I would log into your AE router and update the settings or just reset the base station back to default and start from scratch. Here is a link for more information on it.

Once it's reset, you can start from scratch and change the name of the network again and assign the password you want (just like you did the first time around)

Thanks for replying and confirming what I suspected. What is "AE" ?I have looked at the link- thank you, however as usual these things are written by people who have forgotten what it means to be a novice. The article is to complicated. I didn't set up the network in the first place my computer programmer neighbour did it (now moved) about four years ago so I cannot claim to have done this before. Starting from scratch is easier said than done and has many pitfalls and a lossof connection if I do it wrong.