Wireless internet in cafes/hotels

Glasgowchap

Hi

I notice a lot of people now are able to just bring their own laptop into a hotel lobby or certain cafes and use the internet wirelessly.

Can someone tell me how prevelant these locations where this is possible to do are and also very approximately how much does the internet package cost to access the internet this way?

Thanks

amcluesent

Pretty much all the hotels etc. have it, plus railways stations etc. It costs plenty, maybe £6 for an hour or £15 for a day - but of course you can't transfer unused time from location to location. Profits are everything!

1st class on GNER gives you free wi-fi from Aberdeen to Kings Cross

DMUK

Wifi access is becoming much more prevalent and generally comes in 2 forms.

1. Free - access is given free to encourage custom - Starbucks and cafes all over the city (London where I live).

2. Paid - The Wifi "hotspot" is operated by one of a few providers, such as BT, The Cloud or Boingo. You can Pay as You go, by hourly, daily or monthly subscriptions, and in many cases the access through one provider is useable via HotSpots served by others. Further details on BT's pricing can be found here as an example.

There are many sites on the web whcih list Wifi hotspots in your area.

Cypher

One thing worth noting if you do use these hotspots is anyone else using the same hotspot could be packet sniffing, if they are, they could easily capture your details, passwords logins etc.

ScottishSapper

Cypher wrote:

One thing worth noting if you do use these hotspots is anyone else using the same hotspot could be packet sniffing, if they are, they could easily capture your details, passwords logins etc.

I have wondered about the security of this What brought it to mind is a friend of mine was inbetween providers but she was able to access the internet from her kitchen - apparently her wifi was connecting via one of her neighbours

nearlyrich

I have just got a deal from BT where you get 250 BT openzone minutes per month for the first 12 months of the contract, I am not a new BT customer but they are offering it to all BT internet customers.

For ScottishSapper your friend could get into trouble using a neighbour's broadband, however they should have it encrypted, it's amazing how many people don't I can pick up at least 3 networks around here with no security.

Cypher

ScottishSapper wrote:

I have wondered about the security of this What brought it to mind is a friend of mine was inbetween providers but she was able to access the internet from her kitchen - apparently her wifi was connecting via one of her neighbours

That is one issue in that people don't secure their network access, but a further problem with WiFi is it acts like a Hub, all traffic is broadcast to everyone on the network. So anyone sat connected to the common network such as a hotspot can run a packet sniffer and capture all the data. Even if the network access is secured the minute someone connects they can see everyone elses data who is connected to the network.

amcluesent

>I have wondered about the security of this<

But your banking and shopping sites will be using HTTPS to encrypt the sensitive data to and from your browser, so you can't be sniffed to capture intelligible data even if the wi-fi session is not encrypted.

A more interesting exploit would be to sniff the traffic and then clone the MAC address of another user's wi-fi card. AFIAK, the access points use this when accounting, so when that user finished and you take over the MAC address, the system will give you the balance of the time they have bought.

Cypher

some stuff such as that may be encrypted, but check your e-mail browse a few websites with no secure login's forums such as this and your usernames and passwords can quickly be discovered.