Why does the wifi work?

[Safari Tim]

We are camping right now and the campground offers wifi for $4 a day.

We had no intention of using it. But I decided to try my palm with the built in wifi and it connected no problem.

So we pulled out the laptop and are surfing away.

Pretty neat. But why does it work. What are people paying the $4 for?

BTW- we are the only silver trailer amist a land of white fifth wheels. Did have one couple stop by to admire my *chrome* propane tanks

[silverback]

It works because they haven't configured any security (WEP key, MAC address filtering etc...) on their Access Points. In fact it sounds like they're using a default configuration. This means that unscrupulous hacker types could be capturing your clear network traffic (no WEP key = no encryption). I would be very careful with your passwords and credit card.
Regards,
Ken

[Safari Tim]

After paying their rates there's no more money to spend on the credit cards ;-)

I was able to connect right to their router without any trouble. I think they need to look into adding some security....

[Porky Pig]

Make sure you have a firewall installed on your computer ... and you will be fine.

[silverback]

Tim, If I was there, I'd offer my Network Engineer security sevices in exchange for a couple free days... Alas, we can only go out for the weekend (but Flagstaff will be 20 degrees cooler). Checkout this site on War Driving for the skinny on WiFi insecurity.
Ken

[Safari Tim]

I'm not worried about using it. Just curious what normally happens when you sign up for one of these deals.

I would imagine they would give you a login and password.

I think this is a new service here and they are getting the bugs worked out.

[Pick]

Tim, you would be issued a login and password, if you "signed up". Many places are offering free Wi-Fi service these days. The campground I stayed in for 3 months down here in Florida wants to offer free Wi-Fi, but is having a hard time swallowing the cost of inplementation. I suggested a simple Linksys router at the office, but they are afraid it will not cover the whole campground from that location.

[swebster]

We've been offering WiFi hotspots to RVDealers for a while now. They are a ticket oriented system and very secure. You pull in, walk into the store, ask for a ticket and enter the username and password on the ticket.

The dealership can set the ticket duration (3 hours of access, 4 hours of access, etc) and throttle bandwidth allowed, etc.

Some dealership charge for the access and other give it away as an incentive to stop and park in their store for a while.

A dealership can get into this for about $3K. Not a big expense for a dealership but certainly something a small campground would have a hard time swallowing unless they operated it as a profit center.

A lot of the campgrounds are getting in on a "shared hotspot". Where another company comes in, install the equipment and broadband and then "shares" the revenue with the campground. Cheap to get in but I believe these types of companies will collapse as the "do it yourself" option increase in availability and get cheaper and easier to install - a la "Drive down to Best Buy and pick up a Hotspot in a Box"