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AT&T Accidentally Provides Free Wi-Fi To All
SecureThroughObscure writes tells us about a hack broken by MacOSRumors: you can get free Wi-Fi at Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, and other AT&T hotspots if you know how to set your browser's user agent string (trivial on Safari), and know a valid iPhone phone number. ZDNet blogger Nate McFeters gives some more details and links. This can't last.
This actually had some chance of working before it was revealed on /.
Afterall, you don't usually publish your iPhone number to strangers, and if they ever caught the same user agent showing upo at two hotspots it'd be trivial to shut them both down.
Not the best security idea... but it got the system up until they had to come up with better.
Even if every /.'er did this, it still would be a drop in a bucket compared to the number of folks who happily pay the fee.
For example, many pay wifi points can be circumvented just by connecting to a VPN over UDP (since they're only filtering TCP requests). I doubt they're going broke due to that issue though..
A surefire way to ensure that this hack lasts as long as possible is to keep it super-secret and not let AT&T know they screwed up.
But I'm sure posting the story to slashdot is fine. Nobody reads this site, after all...
Maybe it's just me, but am I the only one who's sitting here thinking that using this hack is tantamount to stealing service? Hacks for stealing cable service have existed for decades now, and were very much illegal. And why shouldn't they be? Not everything has to be hacker proof. Sometimes it's just about putting a lock on the door and saying, "This doesn't belong to you."
To use a typical Slashdot analogy, the lock on my front door is pretty flimsy and could probably be picked or forced without much effort. Is that an invitation to walk into my house and use my computer?
This also differs from open WiFi points in that open WiFi points have no security. It's difficult for a passerby to tell the difference between an intentionally shared access point and an access point that has accidentally been misconfigured.
Which reminds me, WiFi security is not all that hard to crack. Does that give people a free license to crack their neighbor's WiFi and begin using it without permission?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
2 - Take your laptop to Starbucks for a coffee.
3 - Profit!
I can see the fnords!
Next you're gonna be telling us how to get free wifi from all those "Linksys" hotspots, aren't you?
This guy's the limit!
It's a violation of the law in all jurisdictions, and finding a jury is a cakewalk. The only person that needs luck is a defendant in finding an attorney who can get him out of it.
"Theft of service" is its own special category. Chances are that AT&T will just fix it to something a little more robust than a user agent string and won't bother to sue anyone about it, unless they just feel like being dicks this month.
The real wtf is that the iPhone's number is in the user agent string. How long till that is used to justify an "existing business relationship"?
It happens all the time. We're not talking about wardriving or hopping on unsecured wifi. This is bypassing (however easily) access restrictions on a paid service. Also, skipping on restaurant bills, gaming the phone system, and splicing into cable systems are all also theft of service.
Jaywalking, further, in most places is not a crime. It's a citation.
"Someone who has a job and/or business that earns good money after spending a lot of time studing and/or working hard to become successful?"
I'd like to think that the letter you left out of the above sentence is a 'd' instead of a 'y'.
It's the romantic in me.
JJ
I have a friend who owns a small restaurant, selling smoothies and sandwiches. He has internet access from the back office, and uses it to communicate with vendors.
He doubled his breakfast and lunch business over the last few months by putting up a wireless router and giving away wifi access. The sign says "with any purchase" but there is no easy way to implement that, so he just leaves it unsecured. Most people buy something anyway.
It costs him almost nothing, and helps to sell food by making the location more welcoming to his customers. It won't take very long for other small food and beverage businesses to catch on.
It's kind of like "air conditioned" businesses used to be. Fifty years ago, air conditioning was unusual. But customers liked it, so the businesses that had it got the customers. Now, every business has it. The only real difference is that wifi is a lot cheaper to provide.
Errrr...