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HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

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Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#41

Post by clnq »

Jamie9912 wrote: post #9

I absolutely loathe those condescending corporate fluff responses "Welcome! I understand you're having issue with x, try doing y and z, all the best!" So much bullshit in one paragraph, why aren't they trained to type like human beings?

Repeating what was said is called a backbrief and it's useful to make sure the communication is understood sometimes. It's used as a rule in some very sensitive areas, like military command.

Perhaps some manager at HP "addressed" their customer support misunderstanding users by instituting a rule like this.

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#44

Post by Nextgrid »

s_dev wrote: post #3

This seems to be just a support thread with two comments? Was kinda expecting a full bug explanation or something with a bit more substance as to why this is happening beyond 'it's just very odd'.

You're asking a bit much from an HP support forum - this is the same level as the Microsoft support forums, aka the blind leading the blind.

Frankly I'm amazed that the reply, despite smelling of useless first-line tech support by wasting an entire paragraph to repeat his question pretty much verbatim, managed to actually offer a useful suggestion of testing with an external keyboard.

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#45

Post by cellularmitosis »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #34
katzgrau wrote: post #15

When I was a teenager I wrote a simple visual basic app to globally detect the letter 'e' and immediately send a [backspace] to whatever application the user was working in. It was a background app and named something like system32.exe which I installed on my girlfriends computer. The frustration she endured while trying to write an essay for school was next level. I faked trying to help her :D She eventually resorte…

There was a funny MS-DOS virus called "Dot.Eater". Whenever you pressed dot key, an ascii face would come from the right side of the screen towards your dot, "eat it" (send backspace) and then run back and exit through the right side of the screen.

I just recently signed up for a European VPS which is known for having the cheapest storage, and thought it was peculiar that the root password they sent me contained only alpha and digit characters, no punctuation or symbols of any kind.

When I then had to use their web-based console to do some administration, I quickly discovered I couldn’t type a “.”, then discovered that many other symbols also didn’t seem to work at this console.

Based on the password, it appears their solution is to simply work around the problem rather than fix it :(((((. Pretty shocking state of affairs for 2023.

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#46

Post by xattt »

I’ve got a Neato vacuum that won’t keep a connection because my wifi key contains an asterisk. All other devices are fine, but the Neato will routinely disconnect after several hours.

This led me down a rabbit hole to first set up a virtual SSID (which worked but impacted apparent throughput), and then a separate AP for low-bandwidth IoT devices.

I don’t have the time in my life to raise enough clout to get this addressed.

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#47

Post by owl57 »

sorokod wrote: post #11
amelius wrote: post #6

This must be to prevent users from using "password" as the password (and instead making them use the less likely to be guessed "assword", assuming of course that the attacker doesn't have a HP computer).

"assfrase" should be more secure.

Joking aside, this exact misspelling is probably way down any brute-force list. So, if your threat model is spammers stealing accounts with common passwords and nobody really trying to hack you in particular, it may be secure enough.

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#48

Post by cellularmitosis »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #21

Two customers with the same malware?

It could also just be buggy firmware. I had an HP 4530s and anytime I quickly typed the sequence “oun”, the chrome developer tools would pop open (something low level was translating that sequence into F12).

Turns out this was a known issue and there was a bios update which specifically fixed it. https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/f-keys-activate-from-ty...

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#49

Post by owl57 »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #45
skocznymroczny wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a funny MS-DOS virus called "Dot.Eater". Whenever you pressed dot key, an ascii face would come from the right side of the screen towards your dot, "eat it" (send backspace) and then run back and exit through the right side of the screen.

I just recently signed up for a European VPS which is known for having the cheapest storage, and thought it was peculiar that the root password they sent me contained only alpha and digit characters, no punctuation or symbols of any kind. When I then had to use their web-based console to do some administration, I quickly discovered I couldn’t type a “.”, then discovered that many other symbols also didn’t seem to wor…

Sad, but why shocking?

Imagine you're the backend guy tasked with generating the passwords for new users. You see the problem. Now, technically fixing it involves figuring out which other things users will now be able to screw up with dots. More importantly, socially it could involve anything from making a teammate work on this to making an external vendor fork the overengineered HyperReact framework they are using. While this happens, you will be reporting to your manager that sign up isn't ready and you don't have a clue when they can launch the product.

Or you can remove a few characters from PASSWORD_CHARS, maybe increase the password length a bit to compensate, and call it a day.

Re: HP laptop can't connect to WiFi with letter 'p' in the password (2018)

#50

Post by cellularmitosis »

owl57 wrote: post #49
cellularmitosis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recently signed up for a European VPS which is known for having the cheapest storage, and thought it was peculiar that the root password they sent me contained only alpha and digit characters, no punctuation or symbols of any kind. When I then had to use their web-based console to do some administration, I quickly discovered I couldn’t type a “.”, then discovered that many other symbols also didn’t seem to wor…

Sad, but why shocking? Imagine you're the backend guy tasked with generating the passwords for new users. You see the problem. Now, technically fixing it involves figuring out which other things users will now be able to screw up with dots. More importantly, socially it could involve anything from making a teammate work on this to making an external vendor fork the overengineered HyperReact framework they are using.…

You understand that this console doesn’t allow you to “cd ..” (or, more importantly, “cd .ssh”)? I’m saying that this is totally unacceptable and should never have shipped in the first place. There are plenty of other providers who have similar consoles which do not have this problem, so clearly a solution is available. The question is, how are they competent enough to run an VPS warehouse yet not competent enough to install a working console?
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