New MacBook, Free Public Wifi Question
Hello All:
My aunt, who is in her seventies, bravely purchased a MacBook today. Leopard is loaded up. She has to wait until mid November for fiber optic to be installed in her building in NYC (no dsl available), so I looked at what Airport might find, and it seemed to find one unprotected network and then displayed, below a thin gray line (like the one that separates the list of networks from options like "Join Other Networks) the words "Free Public WiFi." Having failed to connect to what I thought was an unprotected network, I set my sights on this Free Public Wifi. It would not connect and asked for a pw. Is it true that the password for anything called "free public wifi" are those very words ? Any advice ? Does anyone know if there is a genuine free public wifi signal with a range around Penn South in NYC, on W 25th, between 8th and 9th ? Or know anything else she could try to ride the unprotected (aka the neighbor's) network ? I got an "an error occured" message from airport for that one. Thanks in advance for any responses to these many questions !
Message was edited by: jdvivre
I travel a lot and find my Macbook will connect to some open networks fine and will not connect to others. The problem is you do not know how the other end has their router set up.
It may be an unprotected network, but the user may have limited the number of connections able to connect to the network, or restricted the number of available IP addresses for that connection.
The most important thing is be very careful of any network that says "free" or "public". I have read many articles about people who will set up a false networks in an attempt to get your personal info. You most likely will be able to connect to the network, but will not have internet access. Be careful.
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