NY Times reports on a new "Brazen Attempts by Hotels to Block Wi-Fi"

Too bad people don't check into a few of these sites and then report the interference to the FCC's complaint line.

Movie theaters get sued by the Feds for blocking cell phone access so why not hotels.

because movie theaters use active jammers which are illegal and hotels are using a 'feature' of wifi which is technically legal, although it's being used for questionable reasons (it's not 'security').

True about the jammers nospam. Been there and used to own one that fit into my pocket. Still, it was fun while I had it...

I would not want the Feds to do anything that might stop a mini-monopoly or blackmail scheme from getting started. (We are holding the internet hostage, pay our demands or hit the street)

Wonder how long until the Hotel owners find a way to add a surcharge or "tax" to the bill for this "feature", since the hotel now has to work harder to piss off the customers.

nospam wrote, on Fri, 09 Jan 2015 13:04:31 -0500:

I asked a friend who works at Google HOW they do it it, and he said that the "jamming" hardware acts just like the WiFi SSID that you are connecting to, but then their "jammer" sends what he called a "deauthentication" packet.

He said it simply tells your equipment to disconnect.

The way he explained it (if I understood it correctly) was that Google impersonates any WiFi SSID it finds that is not theirs, and Google constantly sends those 'disconnect' commands as that SSID. This stops you from connecting to any SSID that they see.

He said that they have to have equipment in the ceiling everywhere in order to be close enough to detect your SSID though, and he said he once walked all around the place to find one, with a router in his hand, with a long extension cord, just to see how it got disconnected.

The caveat is that I may not have fully understood him, as he is geeky as can be (phD and all that).

basically yes.

it's a 'feature' of wifi, but it's being used for something other than what it was intended.

the claim is security, but that's bullshit.

hotels charge hundreds of dollars per *day* to business customers who are using the conference rooms and doesn't want anyone to bring their own wifi, which is often better than the crap the hotel has.

This.

If hotels or conferences were capable of providing even a remotely usable WiFi service for a reasonable cost then everyone would use it. However, they think because they have a captured audience they are allowed to charge eye-gauging amounts for a 1990's internet experience.

The FCC should laugh in the hotels' faces and let market forces do their bit.

I can just see myself in a hotel conference room or sitting outside the door, with a battery powered router broadcasting deauthentication packets on the same SSID as the hotel.

Add a few more like minded people with similar hardware and we could even start a Denial-of-Service attack in the offending hotel, as far as wireless is concerned.

Then again I was more active in my younger days...

Per Whitney Ryan:

I guess that's what would keep contrarians from setting up their own equipment to do the same thing to the hotel's service...

guess that fiasco has come to an end.

"Marriott would neither confirm nor deny that it is investigating turning each of its properties into Faraday cages."

Bit of an expensive proposition, for the return it is trying to protect.