The Story Behind “Free Public WiFi”

Ahhh, so the “Free Public WiFi” I keep seeing as I travel is in face the result of a bug in Windows XP… I’d always thought it was an attempt to get me to login to a network where they captured all the traffic looking for passwords and credit card numbers.

Brief excerpt from the article The Story Behind “Free Public WiFi” – It’s Not:

“Everywhere you go, there it is…but it isn’t because the government finally started offering ubiquitous WiFi for public use without you knowing. Instead, it’s a bug in Windows XP that started years ago and has spread computer to computer, like a virus.”

So that explains it – still not going to use it though!