Restaurant Wifi [General]

2012 Mar 24
Dear restaurants, if you don't give away your wifi password, at least have enough common sense not to brand your wifi with your restaurant name. That's just bad advertising! Duh!

2012 Mar 26
I'm going to assume that you asked for the password? I only say this because recently I was at Mill Street for a meeting, and when I asked for the password, they gave it to me and then made sure that it was correct, et cetera...

2012 Mar 26
Yes I did, and they said they do not give it out. What a bunch of dimwits! Change the damned name to something else so nobody will know you are being stingy with your password!

2012 Mar 26
Don't tell me the name of the restaurant, but could you tell me what the channel name was?

2012 Mar 26
Channel name? The wifi name? It was the name of the restaurant. So if I understand what you mean by "channel name" then it is one and the same as the restaurant name :-)

2012 Mar 26
Weren't you bemoaning people using their phones in restaurants not long back?

2012 Mar 26
Sure, I was talking about people with their faces buried in their phones the whole night. In this case I had my son's friend with us and we were already 30 minutes longer than I had told his mom I was going to be, and the only option I had to notify her was by email since I did not have her phone number. And I don't have a dataplan on my phone (testament to how little I used it). So I just wanted to send a quick email.

In any case, I was just speaking to a restaurant owner and he told me they use the wifi for their business at the restaurant. Sure, I figured people would be doing that, but a few points that you really ought to heed in that case :

- wifi is inherently insecure, if you have your business financial data going across it, you really want to make sure your set up was reviewed by an IT professional with experience in wifi security. you want a minimum of WPA2 with MAC address security turned on (I'll audit your setup for a reasonable fee or gift certificate - I've got almost 20 years experience in this area)
- broadcasting your restaurant name as your SSID is an invitation to crooks to come and get you
- you should either broadcast a completely different name, or turn off the SSID broadcasting altogether so nobody sees it (or better yet, both)
- it is possible to have separate wifi for your restaurant's business and for your customers if you want to supply customers. This is STRONGLY recommended if you are giving out your wifi password. See point 1 above.
- it is relatively easy to set up one of those types of access points that force a customer to agree to terms and conditions before using it.


2012 Mar 26
This is all new telecom/datacom netiquette stuff.

But back in the day, if I had my son's friend with me I'd have the parent(s) phone number as well. Not sure what parents do now .. is it email only ?

As far as security ... I still like coming across a WiFi connection that has 'password' as the password. Not that the Captain wouldn't pull a Caper or nothing.


2012 Mar 27
Oh I hear ya Captain - that was my bad for not having it in the first place. But nonetheless I did not have it.