IP & DNS address, why?

Dick_Turpin99

One place I visit abroad they insist on loading in the IP & DNS numbers before I can use their wi-fi, is there a reason why they would need to, does it offer any advantages over having an 'open' set?

davb

Normally it would be set to obtain an IP/DNS automatically (via DHCP) and access controlled by giving you the wireless key, which would be changed regularly.
All I can assume is that they are controlling access by not having DHCP and manually adding the IP to PC's they authorise. This would also make it easier from them to check on usage.

Maciek1984

All depends on their policies and how they roll out IP addresses. They may not run a DHCP server or authenticate wireless clients through DHCP. Could also be so you dont change IP addresses next time you log on which makes usage easier to view. They could also be short on IP addresses and dont want lots of random wireless clients tieing up IPs.

Just realised i pretty much repeated the 1st post. Sorry davb.

Dick_Turpin99

thanks for the information :beer:

one thing I noticed that if I try to run without their dedicated numbers the connection speed drops off

patman99

By controlling the DNS they actually have the power to decide which sites you can and cannot visit. If they have limited bandwidth then it is entirely feaseable for them to set-up their DNS to redirect requests to media-streaming sites such as youtube, last.fm and Iplayer to an internal 'service not available on this network' page.

timmygcsc2308

patman99 wrote: »

By controlling the DNS they actually have the power to decide which sites you can and cannot visit. If they have limited bandwidth then it is entirely feaseable for them to set-up their DNS to redirect requests to media-streaming sites such as youtube, last.fm and Iplayer to an internal 'service not available on this network' page.

they can do that anyway by setting the routers DNS to their preferred DNS server then this will get pushed out via DHCP..having you manually set the DNS is not going to prevent anything, you could easily bang your own DNS settings in for something like OpenDNS. Filtering out media streaming would be a function for the router and/or firewall (I say and or since most 'home' routers have this kind of functionallity built in)
No, having you set the IP and DNS manually is either a rudimentary way of access control, though a PSK and/or MAC address is by far the best option, or they just don't understand what they are doing and don't realise these settings can be pushed out via DHCP :rotfl:

Dick_Turpin99

patman99 wrote: »

it is entirely feaseable for them to set-up their DNS to redirect requests to media-streaming sites such as youtube, last.fm and Iplayer to an internal 'service not available on this network' page.

now this I have noticed on other peoples' computers