Re: [edlug] Free Wireless in Starbucks Today ...

[Rory McCune <rorym@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

Hi all,

I think I can answer this one..... That Starbucks doesn't have WLAN... 
(There's a checker on their website) however in George street on a 
recent warwalking excercise to test out my new shiny Linux based 
handheld (Sharp Zaurus C860) I found 22 WLAN networks in George Street 
alone, 9 of which had no WEP enabled!!

The fact that the SSID started belkin, it sounds like someone just 
plonked it on their LAN with no config at all, not a good idea (tm)

On your questions....

1. Interesting from a Legal standpoint (IANAL BTW) the fact that there 
were no banners or other messages telling you it was private and that 
you were in a public place would probably be in your favour.  that said 
I wouldn't make a habit of connecting to that LAN if I were you, as it 
could well be some companies internal network (albeit a poorly 
configured one)

2. Nope and as you surmised, I won't be t-mobile (all the SSID's that 
I've seen for their hotspots are "tmobile", other hotspots are 
"eurospot" or "mycloud" (although it occurs to me that anyone could set 
their SSID's to those ones, so it's probably best to go by physical 
signs that there is a hotpose in a given location"


cheers


Rory
Blog: www.nmrcon.net

Philip Nelson wrote:

> ... 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  
>  


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