[edlug] Free Wireless in Starbucks Today ...

[Philip Nelson <teamdba@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

... yes really !!!

At lunchtime today I had to make a trip into the centre of Edinburgh for a 
visit to Jenners.

Being slightly peckish, and knowing that some Starbucks now have wireless 
access (T-Mobile) at a cost, I went into the one on the corner of Hanover 
Street and George Street (the one that used to be a travel agent).

There was no indication that wireless service was available.  But I had a 
couple of things to do on the trusty old laptop even without internet access, 
so I fired up SuSE 9 (with my wireless card in the PCMCIA slot).

I decided to try the Internet even although there was no indication of any 
hotspot.  So I opened Konqueror, typed in www.lwn.net and ...

No login screen for T-Mobile, depending a user ID / password or money.

Instead the requested web page displayed straight away.  Opened up Kmail and, 
sure enough, email was also working.

Thinks ... is T-Mobile having a free day because of the holiday.  I doubted 
it.  So open up Konsole, su to root and type "iwconfig".  Sure enough the 
ESSID isnt "tmobile" but "belkin56g".  Someone's home wireless network ? Or 
part of a community project ?

Whatever I enjoyed half an hour of surfing, applied the latest patches to SuSE 
and got my email.

Questions :

1) Have I done anything wrong ?   If not I can see this location getting the 
benefit of my custom on a frequent basis, given that T-Mobile have just 
changed their pricing structure to make access on a regular basis very 
expensive.

2) Does anyone know whose network I was connected through ?

Phil  
-- 
Philip Nelson
(teamdba@xxx.xxx.xxx)
http://www.scotdb.com
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