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Mike Landi
August 7th, 2006, 08:55 PM
So I was on vacation last week in southern NJ. Wildwood Crest to be specific. The hotel we were staying at advertised high speed internet access, so I brought the trusty Dell notebook.

After checking in, and taking a swim, I fired up the notebook to check email.

I quickly found the router for the resort broadcasting a SSID that was obviously the hotel. I tried to connect and was challenged for a WEP key. Okay, I thought, lower security, but security at least. I made sure McAfee was running at full strength and then went to the office to get the key. Got the key, typed it in, and I was on.

The next morning, I was browsing around and I happened to accidentally open "My Network Places" instead of "My Documents". To my surprise, XP reported a network place called "WRT54G". Uh, oh. I tried to connect to it and was password challenged. Figuring that for some reason the hotel wanted their router advertising itself, but assuming it was secure, I tried the default LinkSys password.

Guess what? Yep! I was into the router. Wide open router, factory default password.

That evening, I noticed an odd box on top of the Snapple machine outside, next to the pool. On close inspection, I saw that the box was a vinyl box with two LinkSys high-gain antennas poking out the back with silicone weather caulking smeared all over it. Can we say home-brewed? <g>

The next day I approached the hotel owner and explained that he did have some security on who connects to his network, but once connected, he had next to nil security. I compared it to having a key lock on the office front door, but having the keys to the office safe hanging out of the safe door.

He asked me if I knew how to fix it and, sheepishly, asked if I could help them. I told them I could fix it inside of ten minutes, which I did. I made some changes to his router. I made access to it HTTPS, upped the security to WPA2 with TKIP+AES. I left his key alone since it looked pretty good (10 alpha numeric characters) and I wrote down on a piece of paper the HTTPS IP, the settings and then I had him enter and confirm a password that I did not see.

I told him to keep giving out the code he had been (nice side effect was that all guests who may have tired to connect, and who were dumped off by the router being reset, could get back on using the same code), but do not give out the password he had entered.

The owner (and his grandmother, the place is family owned) were very happy. He said the people he used to set this up were "just learning how to do this".

I accepted a T-shirt for my efforts. Fair trade I think. <g>

Judy G. Russell
August 7th, 2006, 10:13 PM
I accepted a T-shirt for my efforts. Fair trade I think. <g>I had basically the same experience a couple of years agi, except that the instant I turned on my wi-fi-equipped notebook, I not only got connected, I got a bad boy trying to hack into my Notepad executable. So I quickly shut down and politely told the lady at the B&B that she was in a baaaaad way. I spent a couple of hours getting her cleaned up, then set up with a software firewall, antivirus protection etc. with a strong recommendation for a hardware firewall and more.

And what I got for my time? Nada. Not even a free daily beach pass, worth exactly $4.

I won't be going back there. Ever. I didn't really mind sharing my experience with her, but a "thank you" of some kind was definitely in order. A t-shirt would have been fine...

Mike Landi
August 8th, 2006, 02:47 PM
I thought of you when I was doing my little repair service. I certainly got a "thank you", and I plan to go back next year. <g>

Judy G. Russell
August 8th, 2006, 09:16 PM
I really don't know why people find it so hard to say thank you for something done out of the ordinary. It doesn't take much, and it really goes a long way to make up for doing something stupid (like getting your guest's notepad.exe file contaminated...)!

Mike Landi
August 8th, 2006, 09:40 PM
You are right.

I've also noticed that when you offer someone help or do something extra for them, many people turn suspicious and then act like they wish you had done anything in the first place.

"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

Judy G. Russell
August 9th, 2006, 09:46 PM
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe LuceToo true, I'm afraid. Too true...

fhaber
August 23rd, 2006, 03:49 PM
>when you offer someone help or do something extra for them, many people turn suspicious

That's if you're lucky. Sometimes they assume you've just contracted to support what you did for life, for free, or for the other color of t-shirt, once a year.

Luckily, a little face time can differentiate the born leechers from the menschen/stand_up_guys/fully-socialized. There are still some of those.

Short guide to the rest:

18th C.: droit de signeur

19th C.: the world owes me a living

20th C.: I'll just start by assuming I'm everyone's black-sheep nephew and see what I can get out of it, until they actually kick me down the front steps.

21st C.: (this exercise is left to the user.)

Mike Landi
August 24th, 2006, 09:06 AM
<sigh>

No good deed....

davidh
August 24th, 2006, 09:42 AM
Shoulda told her you were an attorney and would, for a fee, write a waver for guests to sign absolving the B&B of liability if their laptops get hosed by her network.

ndebord
August 24th, 2006, 11:47 AM
You are right.

I've also noticed that when you offer someone help or do something extra for them, many people turn suspicious and then act like they wish you had done anything in the first place.

"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

Mike,

Had just such an experience yesterday. I was in my favorite Networking Cafe when a fellow asked if I could help him with an Excel Worksheet (contracter of some kind). The owner of the shop wasn't in and his mother was standing in for him and looked at me for help, so I did it.

Turns out that there were 3 of us. A kid (and his father as chaperone) the guy recruited off the street to "type in some info" and moi helping this moron do things.

Things went downhill quickly and at the end of it all he refused to pay the shop for the time on the computer...after asking them to fax this thing to a non-working fax number and then refusing to believe that it was a bad number, even with the fax header on the copy to prove it was bogus.

After 10 minutes or so, he came back in the shop, walked up to me and started to berate me for doing a terrible job on his little contract.

Had to invoke the cops to get rid of him. Oh yes, it turns out he spent almost 2 hours on the computer with this kid he dragooned and paid him (under protest) just five bucks!

Mike Landi
August 24th, 2006, 12:26 PM
Lovely. I'm always amazed at people who receive charity and them bite the hand that fed them.

Judy G. Russell
August 24th, 2006, 02:50 PM
Shoulda told her you were an attorney and would, for a fee, write a waver for guests to sign absolving the B&B of liability if their laptops get hosed by her network.I might have done that if I hadn't needed the #$%# internet access so badly myself! I didn't care nearly so much about other guests (or even the B&B owner) getting hosed themselves as I did about MY getting hosed while I was there...