Captive Portal at Condo

[Ratsima]

The monthly fee at my condo includes pretty fast Internet delivered by Ethernet (Cat-5) to each unit. Unfortunately, they've chosen to authenticate users via a captive portal system. Each unit only gets one username/password. Just the two of us have half a dozen devices, so limiting access to just one at a time won't do.

I've figured out how to work around this, but I'm wondering how common it is. I know many hotels and other public WiFi hosts use a captive portal system, but I can't figure out why they'd use it for paid, wired access.

Any ideas?

[JamesWest]

are there legal terms displayed on the page?
maybe they want to limit the number of users.

did you figure out the password to their router yet?
what manufacturer is it?

does plugging in your own wifi router work?

or make your own hotspot after authentication?

[Ratsima]

The page is just a generic page with no legal terms or advertising.

Yes, perhaps they want to limit users, but it seems rather extreme in these days when everyone has several devices to limit an entire family to just one.

I plugged in a wireless router (Airport Extreme) and set it up to do DHCP on a different subnet. (I know, double NAT, but it works)

I also wrote a short shell script that I run every ten minutes to keep us all logged in:

Code: Select all

lynx --dump http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html | grep 'Success'
if [ $?  != 0 ]; then
     echo '&txtLogin=uuuuu&txtPasswd=ppppp&sm_login=Submit' | /opt/local/bin/lynx -post_data http://10.0.1.254/portal/user-authen.php
fi

So far, it's working well. We' got an Internet enabled TV, an AppleTV, two iPhones, a Raspberry Pi, an iPad and two MacBook Airs all on at the same time. And, no one ever has to log in.

There is one problem. The public spaces (pool, lobby, etc.) have WiFi which uses the same username and password. So, if one of us tries to log in to WiFi at the pool it knocks off the router in the condo which, ten minutes later, knocks off the WiFi user at the pool, and so on.

Here's another oddity. I've scanned the condo subnet a few times and it appears that I'm the only owner using it. All the other devices were the office computers and printers and a few WiFi access points. Perhaps everyone else just uses cellular data on their phones.

[JamesWest]

maybe some packet sniffing running for a few days on a common area wifi will yield little used passwords.

or "social engineering" hacking were you just ask someone around the pool for "the" password not "their" password.

or look for notes around the building office. then you will have at least two passwords.

or ask one of the girls (they are always girls) if they can make your phone work on the wifi.
give them the wrong password. then they might test with their password. your phone should remember that.
or ask a maid. she might have a password.

i think with the captive portal they changed the default router passwords. but if you scanned the network and got the router type maybe default will work. or visual inspection as wifi seems to be hanging all over the place in hallways and lobbies.

but it sounds like you got it wired. nice script.

about not seeing other users, how many wifi networks /routers are there? sometimes you can't scan or see traffic beyond a router or switch.

[Ratsima]

We did manage to get another username/password. This one is used by the staff and seems to have unlimited logins, so we're set there. However, it does a have a rather short inactivity logout, so we just use that with the public area WiFi.

When I scanned the network I didn't see any other routers, just computers, printers and wireless access points.

The place is a ghost town except on weekends. If I'm there during the week, I'm often the only resident.