4 ms·
During my short time in Russia, the "unprotected wifi network" did not appear to exist. Wherever I went, they seemed pretty paranoid (probably justifiably) abo
by IvyMike 13y ago
During my short time in Russia, the "unprotected wifi network" did not appear to exist. Wherever I went, they seemed pretty paranoid (probably justifiably) about keeping wifi locked down.
Hotels went so far as to give you a custom per-device one-day-only password.
- mgkimsal 13y agogorky park was one of the few 'open wifi' hotspot I found this year (April). I'm sure there are others, and I didn't venture outside of downtown moscow, but I didn't notice open wifi (found a couple, really poor speed). I had a mifi hotspot with me which kept me connected around town.
- pampa 13y agoStarbucks and mcdonalds has open wifi, Aa lot of cafes and food courts in malls. Private access points are usually WPA/WPA2
- mgkimsal 13y agonoticed in mcd, but only went in twice. My wifi thing popped up asking if I wanted to join (IIRC), and did in gorky park, but rarely ever did anywhere else - travelled a lot of small backroads and streets in moscow, so maybe I didn't hit too many freebies.
- qwerta 13y ago> a custom per-device one-day-only password Pretty common in Europe.
- sehugg 13y agoThey do this in parts of Europe, but I think this is more due to laws that make the hotspot operator liable for user conduct.
- drzaiusapelord 13y agoThere are European (EU?) laws that do this too, and I'm assuming Russia ones. Essentially, they want the identity of every user on wifi. Sucks for the casual traveler.
- rit 13y agoYMMV, depending on country... and how much the hotel cares about Wifi access. Italy has strong controls related to terrorism, IIRC. The which has meant the last few times I stayed in hotels there you had to hand over your passport for photocopying to be issued Wifi passwords. France & Germany have been a mixed bag – smaller hotels handed out per-device, per-use passes but a few nicer / chain hotels I stayed at have the standard "Open hotspot, enter your room # and name to bill to room" setup as I'd find here in the States. The UK For the most part has been fairly normalised ala US Style for me. On the other hand, there are apparently controls over mobile internet access in France, including a (? 48 hour ?) delay in activating prepaid Data, and IIRC your passport also gets entered in the DB. Generally, I'm a prepaid-data-in-country type traveller (I have a bag of about 25 sims from various countries)... France has been a no go for that.
- drzaiusapelord 13y agoI remember having a little fun in Florence with guessing passwords. Think I got on a restaurant or hotel wifi near a tourist spot using "12345678" If they can't stop me, they ain't stopping dedicated terrorists.
- rit 13y agoI suspect (this is entirely speculation) based on conversations with Hoteliers in Italy before that they find it an onerous, silly requirement. They simply have to show that anyone they authorized to access their network was logged. Following the letter of the law, not the spirit, as it were.
- raquo 13y agoActually, I'd say free wifi is at least as common in cafes and restaurants in Moscow as it is in big cities in US/Canada, if not more.
- IvyMike 13y agoI spent more time in other parts of the country, but the ones I came across were free but not "unprotected". Meaning you needed at least a password from the waitress or written on the wall, etc. This is good enough to protect against the "wifi spam bot hidden inside of a household iron" attack.
- marshray 13y agoThe appliance could just try every SSID it sees as the password. Won't take long before someone looking at the sign enters the password in the SSID field of their client.