Kevin Twohy - Free Public WiFi

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Free Public WiFi
jstn:

Have you seen this wireless network? I see it *everywhere*, and it’s so suspicious because it’s always ad-hoc (meaning broadcasting from a computer rather than a regular access point). I imagined for a long time it was part of a virus; it waits for someone to connect, redirects to a page that exploits some hole in Internet Explorer, scrapes your hard disk and sends your social security number to Russia, sets itself up as “Free Public WiFi”, repeat.

After seeing it for the thousandth time at the train station Philadelphia yesterday I decided to look it up. Turns out it’s not a virus (at least not in the usual sense) but rather an interesting fuckup on Microsoft’s part, with viral consequences.

Basically, if Windows can’t connect to a preferred network that happens to be ad-hoc it creates the network itself with the same name. At some point, somebody was connected to a real ad-hoc network called “Free Public WiFi”. They went to another location where it didn’t exist, their laptop helpfully recreated the network, more people connected to it (and probably disconnected when it didn’t work), those people carried it with them somewhere else, and the cycle has been repeating ever since.
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11. commedesfuckdwn reblogged this from jstn and added:
  
  There’s a WEP crack called Caffe Latte that is based on [i think?] the same feature of Windows that stores information...
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19. littletinyfish reblogged this from pilnick and added:
  
  always wondered about that, but didn’t realize
20. iansaylor reblogged this from jstn
21. lawful reblogged this from mareen and added:
  
  Interesting. I see it all over Boston, but could never conect to it.
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31. smoking-drinking reblogged this from jstn and added:
  
  I’ve wondered about...years, likely you have
32. konsum reblogged this from mareen and added:
  
  I have seen it in a hotel somewhere.
33. benkraal reblogged this from marco and added:
  
  Yep. hpsetup on the train, at the station, walking through town… shakes fist at Microsoft
34. streetpreacher reblogged this from jstn and added:
  
  in cologne, germany today....connect though ;)
35. sciencevsromance reblogged this from jstn and added:
  
  wondered about this, just never enough
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46. officiallyrad reblogged this from jstn and added:
  
  first successful
47. neekolas reblogged this from caitoppermann and added:
  
  Wow. Mystery solved. I see these everywhere.
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