Hotels Want to Block WiFi devices
http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/25/technology/marriott-wifi/index.html
In its petition to the FCC, Marriott and the hotel lobby argued that guests can use their smartphones or Mi-Fi devices to launch an attack against a hotel’s Wi-Fi network or threaten other guests’ privacy (by stealing their credit card data or other personal information). They also said that those gadgets can interfere with the hotel’s Wi-Fi, slowing down speeds for other customers.
Help me out here security folks, but this seems backwards to me. I use my phone hotspot connection when I want to stay off the hotel wifi, because anyone sitting on that network could be doing the exact same thing, right? So isn’t Marriott actually making it more dangerous for their guests who have that type of connection?
What am I missing?
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It’s not about the security, it’s about the money.
Period.
And I would be very, very, very surprised if the FCC allows them to do so. The ONLY concern with this spectrum is interference. Security (or said concern of) is NOT it!
Also, as far as “security” goes, last year my wife and I were on vacation. I used the laptop we had with us once on the hotel’s WiFi. To use RDP to get to my desktop so that I could get a bill paid that I forgot when we left. Getting my son (who had his own laptop, but decided to use my desktop for some reason) off the computer was another issue. But when we got home, the laptop started acting screwy, and a malware scan found that just logging on to that hotel’s WiFi got us that malware.
That’s a major reason why I call BS on the security.
That’s what I thought, and while I realize they probably take care of this in the terms of service when you buy wifi from a hotel, I wonder about the legal liability of forcing users to your network, and then having them get hacked while using it.
Has zip to do with “security” for guests. Has everything to do with control and monetization of the guests.