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Guest WiFi using a QR code

blog.jgc.org

151–160 of 284 posts

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#151
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be easier/maybe more practical to print the password to the e-ink screen as well? (QR code error correction is usually enough to let you just knock out part of it and put the text right there.)

Maybe! The problem I was trying to solve was that a 30 character password randomly generated is a pain to type out by hand haha. That said I think having the text would be a step in the right direction

Bootstrap it with a shorter password:

1. Have the display show a 5-digit PIN (TOTP or something that changes every minute or few)

2. Let anyone connect to your network, if they go to a browser window it will show the capture portal

3. Enter the 5-digit PIN and press "enter" and the page will show the 30-digit password so the user can copy+paste

4. User pastes password into WiFi screen and logs in

Make sure to rate-limit this endpoint to prevent random PIN attacks.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#152

This is super cool and would be awesome for situations where your guests are familiar with QR codes. But from my experience the process would go something like this: Visitor: What's your wifi password? Me: No password needed! We have a cool QR code you can scan that will auto-join you! Visitor: Oh cool, how do I use a QR code? Do I need an app? Me: Nope, just point your camera at it. Visitor: Like .. .take a picture…

Vistor: Ok, I took a picture of it. Now what? Do I send it to you? Me: Is it doing anything? What did you do? Vistor: No. I pointed my phone at it like you said. Then I took a picture. Me: What app are you using? Visitor: The photo app I always use. Me: Can you be more specific? Visitor (showing where the icon is): That one. I always use it. Me: That one sucks. Do you have any others? Visitor: I don't know. There's p…

I'm in an Airbnb and the access point has the same name for 5ghz and 2.4ghz. Apple doesn't let you manually switch. The only way I've found to switch when one is not working is to toggle the wifi on/off fifty times.

I think there must be some sort of crazy interference going on because I can literally be sitting right next to the router and 5ghz has about 5k of bandwidth available.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#155

I started with this quite a long back, way before a separate Guest Wi-Fi was commonplace and we were OK just sharing the Wi-Fi. My ideology with guest at home was to offer Water and Wi-Fi. Guest were happy when Mobile Phone signals were bad (slow) and costly. I've forgotten the tool used but I had a QR-Code for the guest Wi-Fi for a very long time. These days, people don't really care as the Internet speed on their p…

I switched to guest networks after I accidentally casted a browsing session to the TV with Chrome and a Chromecast plugged into the TV. Luckily nothing sensitive was shown but it could’ve been embarrassing with other (NSFW) content shown. The guest networks are segmented and use their own VLAN

How do guest networks solve this? You switch wifi networks before you want to use Chromecast?

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#156
post #137
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ShinyTortoise78, no spaces, capitalization on the first letter of each word. Seventy Eight is the numbers 7 then 8, not spelt out as a word" "Uhh English is my 3rd language and I don't know how to spell tortus. is there a QR code I can scan?"

The optimal solution is thus: "What's your wifi password?" "It's written right there on the fridge"

"oh, I have to get up from my table, carry my laptop over to your fridge and attempt to type in the password without dropping anything?"

(I have a horrible short term memory and struggle with short phrases)

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#157
post #38

It uses the form of: WIFI:T:WPA;S:{ssid};P:{password};; Can generate these on Linux with the qrencode program. Wikipedia has information on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Joining_a_Wi%E2%80%91F... Section of the Wikipedia article: Joining a Wi‑Fi network By specifying the SSID, encryption type, password/passphrase, and if the SSID is hidden or not, mobile device users can quickly scan and join networks wi…

Can I also put my networks with Emoji SSIDs into the QR code?

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#159
post #70

This weekend I went to my dacha neighbor to ask a wifi password. All I had is a laptop with half-tuned Debian (do not use no smartphones). He gave me that QR and I could not read it because QR is not text. He is not a technician and I did not want to persist in my ask, so the situation ended up with no internets for me :( Please stop using human-unreadable protocols if opposite is possible.

If you have an integrated webcam there's a nifty package called 'zbar-tools' in debian repos that has a utilty named 'zbarcam' that identifies barcodes from your webcam and outputs them to standard output. Too little too late, I know, but nifty to have in the future.

So just install a program to read qr? Oh wait, I don't have internet.

Re: Guest WiFi using a QR code

#160
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visitor: what's your wifi password? Me: it's the entire alphabet in order. Visitor: I don't want to type 20+ obnoxious letters. Me: can I interest you in a QR code?

It's remarkable how something as trivial as typing 26 characters is onerous on our glassy slabs, but image processing to resolve a high-resolution two-dimensional barcode in a video stream is easy.

Computers are fast and they usually don't complain when you make them do work.
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