"Free Wi-Fi" Scam In the Wild

DeadlyBattleRobot writes in with a story from Computerworld about a rather simple scam that has been observed in the wild in several US airports. Bad guys set up a computer-to-computer (ad hoc) network and name it "Free Wi-Fi." You join it and, if you have file sharing enabled, your computer becomes a zombie. The perp has set up Internet sharing so you actually get the connectivity you expected, and you are none the wiser. Of course no one reading this would fall for such an elementary con. The article gives detailed instructions on how to make sure your computer doesn't connect automatically to any offered network, and how to tell if an access point is really an ad hoc network (it's harder on Vista).

Comments

Re:Free is still free for me

[SuperKendall]

Well, they would have a really difficult time turning my linux based portable into a zombie.

No kidding - is this article really an ad for Linix and/or MacOS X?

The next time I see a "FreeWiFi" I'll jump on and thank them hardily for moving yet another Windows user even closer to an alternate choice.

Tosser...

[Dogtanian]

The next time I see a "FreeWiFi" I'll jump on and thank them hardily for moving yet another Windows user even closer to an alternate choice. And people wonder why some Linux and Apple supporters have a bad reputation for being fanatical.

Personally, I'd try to gather evidence and report it to the police if I felt they'd do anything worthwhile. The fact that this person's behaviour happens to be driving people towards my OSs of choice is purely incidental. You probably realise this, and I doubt that you were serious about thanking the guy, but I bet that your f****d up zealotry, morality and ideology are genuine; you really would place a microscopic (and questionable) "blow" against Microsoft over thieving scum like this escaping justice. You really think that MS-enabled crime (let alone this particular scam) is the only crime they're going to commit?

Stupid idea

[Dogtanian]

Help other folks out. Set yourself up as a proxy, advertise yourself as "Free Wi-Fi" too, and let everyone else (at least, everyone who connects through you) safely use the scumbag's paid wi-fi connection for free. That's the kind of geeky too-clever-for-your-own-good thing that will get you into trouble if the real criminal ever gets caught... or even if he doesn't. Suppose the police (or whoever) at the airport know about this scam and are investigating, and pick up *your* connection. Now you're messed up with this thing; you might know that you're innocent, but they don't, and explanations like "But... but... I was just having some fun at the guy's expense and making it safe for everyone" won't go down well.

How sure are you that you can prove that you're not involved, especially when you've been arrested and subject to police questioning? Under ideal circumstances If you were in control of things, you could probably put together a good case, but fancy playing against a prosecutor and police who genuinely believe that you were involved and want to make you look bad?

And (so the police will want to know) since you obviously knew this guy was up to no good, why didn't you report it?

Doesn't sound such a good idea now.