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Comment by brunoTbear | Hacker News Reader

I thought this was going to be a cool kit for brute-forcing room number/last name pairs which seems to be an increasingly common hotel wifi auth method.

My guess is most hotel wifi access pages lack anti-automation (I've seen CAPTCHA on airplane wifi, but never hotel wifi) and there are enough Smiths/Lopezes/Kims/Lis out there that if you try each of those against every room number (100-1000) you could reasonably get free wifi in minutes. An optimization could include changing MAC address between each attempt to defeat rate limiting on the part of the access point.

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> there are enough Smiths/Lopezes/Kims/Lis out there that if you try each of those against every room number (100-1000) you could reasonably get free wifi in minutes

Stolen wifi, since someone will end up getting charged for it.

It's often free, but protected by this combination of number and name. Just check that before trying and you're not really hurting anybody.

In Case it is free there is no reason not to use your name. For privacy you should tunnel your traffic anyways.

Sometimes it’s free for their “diamond members” or whatever, but not for random consumers.

Unless you're not staying in the hotel, just visiting, for whatever reason. If I remember correctly, some Vegas hotels worked this way.

These gateways almost always let you pay for wifi inline. The name/room guards are for people who get complimentary wifi.

Honestly though I stopped going to hotels that don't offer complimentary wifi and breakfast. That means no Hilton or Marriott. All Holiday inn hotels I've dealt with have been scores nicer than the "high end" crap Hilton pretends to be.

Ah, I see. I've never been to a hotel that didn't have free wifi, so I don't know how they tend to work.

They pretty much suck, you're not missing much.

Right, you always get nickeled and dimed more at the higher end places because they just assume you can afford it. However not all Hilton places suck. Hilton Garden Inn is pretty good, free breakfast, free wifi, and the rooms are nice. I've been staying in Courtyard Mariotts for work lately. No free breakfast but the rooms are nice.

Thanks for the heads up on garden inn. I will give them a chance next time I see them.

Courtyard was a bit better but I got a similar experience as the Hilton. 5 dollar water bottles in the room, nickel and diming all over the place.

My understanding is that it's not just that you can afford it, it's that these places cater heavily towards corporate stays, so the guest is usually not the one paying.

Holiday inn breakfasts are a bit worse quality but I've always been treated with utmost respect as a guest there, so they get my business. Room size is something I don't usually care about as long as there's a desk.

I’m in a Garden Inn now, never been in a bad one but always seem overpriced to me.

I was pretty impressed with Home2 suites, usually just a bit more than Hampton. No omelette bar but otherwise nice breakfasts with microwaveable sandwiches, and the snacks are pretty cheap instead of $5/water.

I don't think I've ever seen a nicer place charge me actual money for wifi, but usually they force you to sign up for their dumb membership club or newsletter (so, not exactly free either).

My last trip I had a box of those soylent shakes sent ahead of me and just used those for breakfast - reasonably healthy and tasty enough. Better then the free breakfast for my use case anyways.

I'll second Hilton on good customer service though, definitely one of my preferred chains. That and the business oriented Holiday Inn Express or whatever they're calling it now.

It's because high-end hotels have lots of business travelers who don't care what anything costs because they'll just expense it to their work.

Last hilton I was at had comp WiFi and breakfast. It varies

I’ve stayed at 30+ different Hiltons this past year, and all but a few had free Wi-Fi. It’s always free if you book direct with them and I’ve never seen Hotels.com selling cheaper than direct (maybe it happens occasionally).

Used to go with Marriott, but they don’t have much inventory outside of major city centers.

I had to fight for free wifi a couple times but I've never seen complimentary breakfast at a Hilton.

I've yet to encounter a situation where this auth method isn't gating a free for the guest wifi setup. I do not support defrauding hotel guests, merely defrauding hotels ;)

Thank you for calling this out for what it is. This isn't free wifi. People may believe it should be free or may feel that it's unethical to charge additional fees for access (or even to ever charge for Internet access)—I won't wade into that argument—but taking something by force (whether physical or virtual) isn't the same as it being free.

Edit: Hell, just call it "liberated" wifi ;-)

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