Airport Wifi
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Airport Wifi
Most airports with scheduled airlines offer free wifi to passengers for a few hours... on the condition that you register, say your name, email, and other bits of personal data. The signing Ts&Cs covers the airport in case you do anything naughty online... while the name and contact details will likely be used for marketing. Some airports (eg in Switzerland or Turkey because of local laws) require you to authenticate genuinely... but most airports accept fake credentials when asking for wifi.
Does anyone know the proportion of people who answer the name/email/phone etc questions truthfully when it's possible to fake it and get away with it ?
Does anyone know the proportion of people who answer the name/email/phone etc questions truthfully when it's possible to fake it and get away with it ?
I've no idea the proportion, but i've read on many occasions that one should always use caution with 'airport wifis' as contrary to what they say, the connections are open to abuse/misuse and one should always use fake details and a VPN if possible. Perhaps the lounge networks are less vulnerable, but in this day and age of data harvesting I would be inclined to have a ready burner email with personal details to match.
If you get as far as the airport's screen where you're invited to enter your details, without first having been asked for a password by the hub, then you are using an unsecured wifi network and should take appropriate precautions.
You're safer than that when you're down the pub with their wifi.
You're safer than that when you're down the pub with their wifi.
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Like PAXboy I prefer to use my own roaming data. It's suprisingly cheap with a reputable phone provider and also very secure and cheap with major VPNs.
The other objection to airport wi-fi is it's very difficult to register and even more difficult to get reasonable speed
The other objection to airport wi-fi is it's very difficult to register and even more difficult to get reasonable speed