Originally Posted by
MissyH
I was sitting in a terminal at XYZ airport. Since they had free Wi-Fi access at this airport, I took out my laptop and tried to connect. To my amazement, my Wi-Fi settings showed 6 available connections. They had nearly identical SSID names. I kept a note of what I saw:
XYZ-Free-WiFi *****
XYZ-FreeAirportWifi ***
XYZ-Airport Free ***
XYZAirportFree **
XYZ-AirportFreeWifi **
AndroidAP(probably someone using phone tethering)
(***** showed signal strength)
I don't know if I was just being paranoid, but I had a feeling that one or more of them must have been fake access points. I ended up not connecting to any of them.
How can I tell which is real and which is fake?
There are two types of wifi connections: ad-hoc and access point. Connecting to an access point is how you usually connect to wifi. Ad-hoc networks are computer-to-computer connections, and you'll see a different icon next to them (usually two computers talking). Most of the fake free wifi networks at airports are ad-hoc, so ignore those and connect to the access point one.
Most of those aren't actual scam networks BTW. Windows XP will automatically broadcast an ad-hoc network named the same as the last one it connected to if it isn't connected to an access point. I'll bet most of the ones listed are the computers of people who previously connected to a fake "Free Public Wifi" network and don't realize that their computer is now doing it also.
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireles...airports.shtml