{"id":3422,"date":"2010-10-13T10:28:56","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T18:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/?p=3422"},"modified":"2010-10-13T10:28:56","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T18:28:56","slug":"why-do-i-keep-seeing-free-public-wifi-as-a-wireless-access-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/why-do-i-keep-seeing-free-public-wifi-as-a-wireless-access-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do I keep seeing Free Public WiFi as a wireless access point?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/knowing-is-half-the-battle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3423\" style=\"margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px;\" title=\"knowing-is-half-the-battle\" src=\"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/knowing-is-half-the-battle-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/knowing-is-half-the-battle-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/knowing-is-half-the-battle-36x36.jpg 36w, https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/knowing-is-half-the-battle-115x115.jpg 115w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>I see this on my machine quite often when searching for wifi access, &#8216;<em>Free Public WiFi&#8217;<\/em> and I sometimes wonder, why are there so many of these and should I try any of them.\u00a0 Normally I don&#8217;t anything access point that I do not know is safe so I don&#8217;t even bother to click on it. After a while I realised that most of these are ad-hoc connection meaning I&#8217;m just seeing someone elses computer. However, I read a post on slashdot and someone explained why we see them so often and all over the place..\u00a0 its a bug!\u00a0 A windowsXP bug to be precise. (should have figured)\u00a0 It goes like this&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Apparently, the way XP works is that if it can&#8217;t find a &#8216;favorite&#8217;  WiFi hotspot, it automatically sets up the computer to broadcast itself  as an ad hoc network point, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=130451369\">using the name of the last connection the computer attempted<\/a>.   So&#8230; people see &#8216;Free Public WiFi&#8217; and they try to log on.  Then  their own computer starts broadcasting the same thing, because it can&#8217;t  find a network it knows.  And, like a virus, the &#8216;Free Public WiFi&#8217; that  doesn&#8217;t work lives on and on and on.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nice eh?\u00a0 So now you know.\u00a0 And knowing is half the battle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why do I see &#8216;Free Public WiFi&#8217; as an access point?&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/why-do-i-keep-seeing-free-public-wifi-as-a-wireless-access-point\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[791],"class_list":["post-3422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips","tag-free-public-wifi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pjzQD-Tc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3424,"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3422\/revisions\/3424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}