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Travel annoyance #47: Paying for hotel Internet access has GOT to stop {Gadling}
Dec 4th 2009 2:54AM free internet
Most hotels use one of two methods to control access.
disclaimer: this is a disclaimer so that you take me more seriously, and to cover my ass in the event that you try some of these methods and things go terribly wrong and you get caught, i claim no responsibility in how you use this information.
1. proxy method
sends you to a page which is actually a proxy server program (easy as hell to write in perl) that forwards all internet request from you provided you are paying for the service.
circumvention
1. sometimes they dont block images because they want their advertisements to load fast from distributed content servers like akamai, therefore something as easy as adding a simple ?blah.gif will work. the ? in general tells the server its getting some arguments but the proxy isnt expecting them and hopefully lets the request through because it simply looks at the extension and goes ooh this is an image let it pass.
2. a little more advanced, but you can always check other ports and then forward your internet traffic through the open ones. generally proxies are only listening on port 80 or 8080 and server admins often leave some of them opened for remote maintenance, one such is 22 which you could use to tunnel via ssh, and get added security as a bonus!
2. mac filtering
looks at the specific machine address tied to your wireless device and blocks anyone that isnt paying
circumvention
1. mac addresses are tied to your device, however its the operating systems job to tell other computers about it. and as anyone duped by the promised capabilities of windows vista knows, operating systems can lie. yup, so all you have to do here is sniff (need a card that supports promiscuous mode) other peoples traffic. It doesnt matter if its encrypted or not, you just need there mac address. copy that address down and change your mac address to it. if that person is a paying customer and mac filtering is the hotels only authentication, then you just scored some free interwebs. changing mac addresses is pretty easy in linux (macchanger or network conf) and windows (system setting->device browser->wifi card->mac address)
thats all for now.
GE concocts battery-free RFID sensing platform, possibilities abound {Engadget}
Oct 15th 2008 1:40PM RFID is a blanket term for something that has been around for a long time. Initially it was all active tagging, like for tracking animals and stuff. These devices required batteries and could transmit long distances. However when we really started to hear about rfid is when they became passive. At the cost of shorter transmission lengths (sorry Tesla no useful wireless power), passive rfid devices do not require an internal power source and instead use the field received by the antenna to charge an inductance loop that then discharges through some ic containing the tags id, which is then retransmitted with the remaining power. Additionally the IC can do some meaningful work (ie calculate random hops to avoid transmit intersection with adjacent devices). GE appears to be using MEMs and other environmentally aware devices onto the rfid to allow for monitoring. This is very useful as it allows for passive devices to be placed in remote locations to be accessed more easily at any time.
Researchers demo "unbreakable encryption" based on quantum cryptography {Engadget}
Oct 10th 2008 11:52AM Quantum encryption was broken because massive quantities of entangled elements were sent. This gives a probabilistic threshold for determining tampering with a given entangled key (until signals are on the per electron level). Just like quantum uncertainty ruling the underlying constituents of matter and yet despite such uncertainty no one ever appears then disappears spontaneously. So the larger your physical data packet (in electrons), the less directly entangled it becomes, as the uncertainties composite is probabilistically more certain. The reason that the researchers did this is required for any reliable communication via normal channels, (super conductors maybe?). So its a known flaw that the original researchers knew and thus they developed a threshold (bandwidth/security) . The hack which is not all very clever is to simply to stay below the threshold, and only tamper with a few electrons over time. Theoretically the key is not unbreakable, rather its immune to mitm attacks. As an attacker would be detected by the sender, as perturbations to their entangled key.
U. of Cincinnati is hosting the 2nd interntl. post quantum cryptography conference in next week -- http://math.uc.edu/~aac/pqcrypto2008/
Guide to robot ethics set for publication {Engadget}
Jun 19th 2006 1:54PM why govern robots by laws that do not govern humans. Instilling the fear of non-existance in a self aware robot is all that needs to be done inorder to maintain order. Controlling robots, particularly self aware ones, is tantamount to enslavement. The only differentiating factor between two legitimately self aware beings is their prejudice toward the other.
PEToR
(the people for the ethical treament of robots)
