by patcat88 » Sat Aug 07, 2004 10:53 am
I ment. Restaurants that offer wifi access need to put wifi signal jammers (active jammers, or anti-wifi wall paper) to stop people from using non-restaurant wifi networks.
For example, I will go to starbucks, and never pay for their wifi, I will just use a high gain directional antenna and use someone else wifi (there is a nice park with a free hotspot across the street from a starbucks I use (emenity is the provider). The only function the starbucks serves is to provide me with a 120v AC outlet because my laptop's batteries dont last more than 1 hr, and to provide me with a really good soft seat to sit down on (some have recliner style seats). I would never use the starbuck's wifi. $6 an hour is way too much.
Also the mcdonalds that I said earlier above I tested to have wifi access. I visited it (724 broadway, 6th street and broadway nearest intersection) 2 months ago. It still has wifi (SSID ~"Wayport-access"), except here comes the sad part. All the M with @ logos are gone, all official McD logos relating to wifi and McD's wifi plans are gone, all posters to wifi and stickers on teh doors and even on the store sign are gone. The only mention there is wifi is a clear plastic sheet, private made (probably by the franchise owner), in plain font and black letters that says "wifi" on one of the windows. I did not enter the store or load up a webpage (battery died before I could), just stood outside it and connected and got a IP that's DNS said ....*.mcd.*....., so that must have been the store's wifi network.
McD corporatly abandoned its wifi plans I think, and whatever installations they had became the franchise owners responsibilty, and McD told the owners, u can turn it off, use ur own provider, or use our partner wayport.
Strangly in union square park I still get a few rare detects from 2 "Cometa-hotspot" but the signals are weak and I cant figure out where they are coming from. Its for sure not from the union square mcdonalds.