
Discouraging People From Joining Your WiFi Network - hking329
http://blog.joemoreno.com/2011/06/discouraging-people-from-joining-your.html
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alexqgb
Tangentially related: a clever coffee shop / cafe that offered free wifi
changed the name of its network every day, updating it to broadcast whatever
their special was. You could not join without thinking (momentarily) about
"Corn Chowder, $2" or "Chocolate Chip Cookies - buy one get one free, today
only."

Yes, they had specials boards, but people ignore those. The network, on the
other hand, was unavoidable. From what I understand, this tecnique was
extraordinarily effective. Something about clicking on the name of the item
triggered an expectation that you were going to get the item. As you sat
there, drinking coffee and futzing on Facebook, you'd keep thinking about the
special that part of you was now expecting.

I suspect the "free" wifi paid for itself very swiftly.

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DrStalker
I used to call my network "Disable Networking" so I could enjoy the confused
look of visitors.

It's since been renamed to be an in joke between my fiance and myself, which
is even more enjoyable.

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orofino
I'm not sure why I care if someone attempts to connect to my network and fails
to because they don't know the password.

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nkurz
One network name I've enjoyed seeing recently is of the form "DEA Mobile
Surveillance Unit #8". I presume this is a good joke rather than a clueless
Drug Enforcement team...

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trotsky
Oddly idiotic blogspam, obviously no one cares if someone tries and fails to
connect to their secured network, as if people just sat there guessing
passwords anyway.

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spicyj
Strange, I can see the flag just fine.

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daimyoyo
The article says that most people don't shut off broadcasting the SSID on
their router because it's too much hassle. Really? The option on mine took
less than a minute to turn off. Then once I set up the machines I use, they
connect automatically. Should someone want to use my wifi, I'd just give them
the SSID and password. It's not that big a deal, and I have all the security I
can get short of setting a hardwired VPN up. The risk of bad things being
downloaded aside, why would you want someone tying up bandwidth and slowing
your connection down? I don't get it.

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ryanhuff
When tethering with wifi through my phone, I use "viruses". But its still a
constant stream of connection attempts from passer-bys.

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saturdayplace
Just yesterday we had a rogue WAP show up in our building called Virus23. One
of our developers was using his phone to broadcast that SSID and his Android
tablet was connecting to it. He used that name for the same reason. It made us
in IT a bit nervous till we figured out what it was.

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bdclimber14
I used a similar strategy with a 5 day stay in a hospital that didn't have
WiFi. I tethered my phone and made a protected network called "$10/day - go to
room 515". I was actually expecting to get a few clients, but no one ever did
visit me.

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salman89
It would be interesting to set '9.95 a minute' as the SSID and leaving the
network open.

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tesseract
One of my neighbors used to have a (WPA-enabled) network with the SSID, "$10
internet call <phone number>"

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steventruong
Maybe I'm not understanding something but if it's secure anyway, why would it
matter.

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andymoe
Or just don't broadcast your ssid...

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indyT
but that's an inconvenience - it is much easier to just select a network then
have to type the name, call me lazy #imnotsayingimjustsaying

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oconnore
If only we had cheap bandwidth and SSL by default it wouldn't matter...

