How do they do it

worthingsaxovtr · 9 Apr 2009 at 14:34

Hi

When you logon to the wfi-fi for example in a hotel / cafe they have the webpage which your broser is forced to go to. To sign up or click on the T&C's

How do they do this, have always wondered.

Cheers

K.C. Leblanc · 9 Apr 2009 at 14:45

Usually a transparent proxy server. Or it might be a feature of their wireless system, some of the managed wireless systems are very powerful.

Rroff · 9 Apr 2009 at 14:57

Your system simply requests a URL from the web proxy/gateway and processes whatever is returned, normally the proxy would forward your request to the domain specified in the URL and pass back whatever it returned to you. In the case above instead of forwarding the URL the proxy simply ignores it and returns its own page data, which your browser then displays as if it was the URL you originally requested.

mejinks · 11 Apr 2009 at 00:48

The question is, how do you get around whats being displayed and get the page you requested? Its kind of like a man in the middle attack

bigredshark · 11 Apr 2009 at 12:14

mejinks said:
The question is, how do you get around whats being displayed and get the page you requested? Its kind of like a man in the middle attack

Well if they're anywhere approaching competent, you don't. All traffic goes by the proxy, they block any protocol aside from http/https, easy stuff.

rz30 · 11 Apr 2009 at 21:31

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal