Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

coffeeshopwifi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 85 posts

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#71

Post by ameetgaitonde »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #58

this doesn't explain why you should connect to the site or would need to use it. That first paragraph could describe the scenario. As I haven't been inside a coffee shop or any public wifi scenario in over a year I was trying to remember what the use case was for this....

From reading the comments, this is for use in scenarios where you connect to a guest wifi network, but aren't automatically taken to their authentication page to get access to the internet.

By trying to connect to a http:// website instead of https://, the redirect will work, allowing you to authenticate your device and access the internet.

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#74

Post by BoorishBears »

franze wrote: post #4

Similar to http://neverssl.com/ I guess?

Yeah, and neither seems to work for me on iOS for some reason.

Like right now, with a connection, it works as expected (loads page, shows security warning in address bar)

But if I don't have a connection, it seems like either the browser or lower level OS security features (ATS?) force the device to try https first, which of course hangs/fails.

A huge pain in general.

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#75

Post by sigjuice »

notwedtm wrote: post #68
sigjuice wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how example.com is better than any other domain in a coffee shop setting. Any DNS lookup can be made to resolve to any arbitrary IP address, so it would not matter if a domain is lapsed or even real.

It's a lot easier to simply register a domain like coffeeshopwifi.com if/when the owner abandons it and wait for the requests to pour in, than it would be to find the specific coffeeshop that your target frequents and then compromise their DNS servers.

It is not about compromising DNS servers at coffee shops.

If I go to a coffee shop, do any packets even have to go to coffeeshopwifi.com or example.com at all?

1. DHCP happens.

2. I type http://example.com, but I get 'Please click AGREE etc. for WiFi'. So far, this should all be internal to the local network.

3. I click on AGREE, but my browser actually goes to philzcoffee.com

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#77

Post by forty »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #9
ykat7 wrote: post #2

I like the straightforward explanation this site provides. That said, I tend to use http://example.com to trigger captive portals because it's an IANA reserved domain [1] that other people can't register. This gives me confidence to browse to it without fear that the domain could lapse in the future and get taken over (e.g. in a watering hole attack). [1]: https://www.iana.org/domains/reserved

iOS (and macOS?) use http://captive.apple.com/

That means apple.com cannot be HSTS preloaded, which is too bad for security.

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#78

Post by droopyEyelids »

I ctrl-f'd and didn't see anyone mention that you can look at your wifi settings, and visit the router aka default gateway IP to connect to the portal directly.

So like if your settings say your gateway is 192.168.0.1, go to https://192.168.0.1

This will work in situations where even a site like coffeeshopwifi.com doesn't

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#79

Post by jraph »

I use http://perdu.com/

It says:

    Perdu sur l'Internet ?
    Pas de panique, on va vous aider
    
        *
Translation:

    Lost on the Internet?
    Don't panic, we are going to help you
    
        *
It is funny, it's been up and without change for decades (amazingly; first snapshot on archive.org in 1998, Wikipedia reports it's been there since 1996!), never had a https version, never noticed a downtime and I've yet to see a page that combine such a short / easy to type URL with such a short size (only 163 bytes, which is useful on spotty / weak connections).

Hard to beat.

CoffeeShopWifi.com is certainly a good idea, could be added to the favorites of non-technical English speakers. Coffee shops are not the only places with captive portal though, here in France they are common on Wifi access points provided by ISPs to their customers when they are roaming, and by the train company (SNCF) in trains and train stations.

Captive Portal is probably too technical so naming this is hard.

Re: CoffeeShopWifi.com – An HTTP website for connecting to guest WiFi

#80

Post by OJFord »

Kluny wrote: post #59
jastr wrote: post #32

Neat to see all the alternatives. I'm not sure what non-technical folks do when faced with this problem, so I picked a friendly domain name. Ironically, if CoffeeShopWifi.com works successfully, the users won't see it.

I use http://motherfuckingwebsite.com , because I'm usually in a swearing mood if I need to use it. I've also always wondered what non-technical folks do.

They go up to the counter and complain that The WiFi isn't working.
Post reply on HN