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I thought this was going to be a cool kit for brute-forcing room number/last name pairs which seems to be an increasingly common hotel wifi auth method. My gue
by brunoTbear 8y ago
I thought this was going to be a cool kit for brute-forcing room number/last name pairs which seems to be an increasingly common hotel wifi auth method.
My guess is most hotel wifi access pages lack anti-automation (I've seen CAPTCHA on airplane wifi, but never hotel wifi) and there are enough Smiths/Lopezes/Kims/Lis out there that if you try each of those against every room number (100-1000) you could reasonably get free wifi in minutes. An optimization could include changing MAC address between each attempt to defeat rate limiting on the part of the access point.
- StavrosK 8y ago> there are enough Smiths/Lopezes/Kims/Lis out there that if you try each of those against every room number (100-1000) you could reasonably get free wifi in minutes Stolen wifi, since someone will end up getting charged for it.
- donkeyd 8y agoIt's often free, but protected by this combination of number and name. Just check that before trying and you're not really hurting anybody.
- johannes1234321 8y agoIn Case it is free there is no reason not to use your name. For privacy you should tunnel your traffic anyways.
- Scoundreller 8y agoSometimes it’s free for their “diamond members” or whatever, but not for random consumers.
- donkeyd 8y agoUnless you're not staying in the hotel, just visiting, for whatever reason. If I remember correctly, some Vegas hotels worked this way.
- scrollaway 8y agoThese gateways almost always let you pay for wifi inline. The name/room guards are for people who get complimentary wifi. Honestly though I stopped going to hotels that don't offer complimentary wifi and breakfast. That means no Hilton or Marriott. All Holiday inn hotels I've dealt with have been scores nicer than the "high end" crap Hilton pretends to be.
- StavrosK 8y agoAh, I see. I've never been to a hotel that didn't have free wifi, so I don't know how they tend to work.
- rootsudo 8y agoThey pretty much suck, you're not missing much.
- moftz 8y agoRight, you always get nickeled and dimed more at the higher end places because they just assume you can afford it. However not all Hilton places suck. Hilton Garden Inn is pretty good, free breakfast, free wifi, and the rooms are nice. I've been staying in Courtyard Mariotts for work lately. No free breakfast but the rooms are nice.
- scrollaway 8y agoThanks for the heads up on garden inn. I will give them a chance next time I see them. Courtyard was a bit better but I got a similar experience as the Hilton. 5 dollar water bottles in the room, nickel and diming all over the place. My understanding is that it's not just that you can afford it, it's that these places cater heavily towards corporate stays, so the guest is usually not the one paying. Holiday inn breakfasts are a bit worse quality but I've always been treated with utmost respect as a guest there, so they get my business. Room size is something I don't usually care about as long as there's a desk.
- 8y ago
- brunoTbear 8y agoI've yet to encounter a situation where this auth method isn't gating a free for the guest wifi setup. I do not support defrauding hotel guests, merely defrauding hotels ;)
- purple-dragon 8y agoThank you for calling this out for what it is. This isn't free wifi. People may believe it should be free or may feel that it's unethical to charge additional fees for access (or even to ever charge for Internet access)—I won't wade into that argument—but taking something by force (whether physical or virtual) isn't the same as it being free. Edit: Hell, just call it "liberated" wifi ;-)