OK. Today I decided to test the free Wi-Fi at the McDonald's at 406 Bourke Street Melbourne. The Maccas is located on the corner of Bourke Street and Hardware Lane.
When I checked the names of available access points there was no McDonald's free Wi-Fi. A check of the McDonald's site shows the location should have free Wi-Fi. There was however free Wi-Fi available from CafeScreen. I thought perhaps McDonald's had decided to outsource the free Wi-Fi and decided to see what happened if I selected CafeScreen.
I was actually a bit concerned when I saw this screen come up with Hijacked.com.au across the top. I always tell people not to take chances, but hey, I like to test things so others don't have to.
It turns out Hijacked is a service for students so no need to be concerned. However if I was McDonald's I'd be concerned. People now expect McDonald's to have free Wi-Fi and I'm finding a number of McDonald's that don't have free Wi-Fi.
There's now a couple of exposures for the public when visiting Maccas who expect free Wi-Fi. When Maccas doesn't provide the service this opens up two opportunities.
1. For a scammer to set up a free hot spot and set up man in the middle attacks.
2. Maccas have a lot of customers and by not having free Wi-Fi, they leave themselves open for others to take advantage of the opportunity to promote as CafeScreen and Hijacked appear to have done in this situation.
Now I have no idea without more accurate equipment to know if the McDonald's free Wi-Fi had been hijacked but I don't think it has. All it needs is for a nearby cafe or restaurant to take advantage of the marketing opportunity and this is simply good marketing. The iPhone does not provide very good tools in terms of testing a Wi-Fi signal. Perhaps next time I may take an Android device and see if I can better locate the access point.
In general I find McDonald's free Wi-Fi to be a terrible service. Rarely does it connect quickly and most times the performance is extremely slow. Sometimes I think it would be better for McDonald's to get rid of their free Wi-Fi service because it is very irritating and takes away from the Maccas experience. Either provide a decent service or none, but a half-hearted effort as Maccas currently do isn't up to their standard.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
When I checked the names of available access points there was no McDonald's free Wi-Fi. A check of the McDonald's site shows the location should have free Wi-Fi. There was however free Wi-Fi available from CafeScreen. I thought perhaps McDonald's had decided to outsource the free Wi-Fi and decided to see what happened if I selected CafeScreen.
I was actually a bit concerned when I saw this screen come up with Hijacked.com.au across the top. I always tell people not to take chances, but hey, I like to test things so others don't have to.
There's now a couple of exposures for the public when visiting Maccas who expect free Wi-Fi. When Maccas doesn't provide the service this opens up two opportunities.
1. For a scammer to set up a free hot spot and set up man in the middle attacks.
2. Maccas have a lot of customers and by not having free Wi-Fi, they leave themselves open for others to take advantage of the opportunity to promote as CafeScreen and Hijacked appear to have done in this situation.
Now I have no idea without more accurate equipment to know if the McDonald's free Wi-Fi had been hijacked but I don't think it has. All it needs is for a nearby cafe or restaurant to take advantage of the marketing opportunity and this is simply good marketing. The iPhone does not provide very good tools in terms of testing a Wi-Fi signal. Perhaps next time I may take an Android device and see if I can better locate the access point.
In general I find McDonald's free Wi-Fi to be a terrible service. Rarely does it connect quickly and most times the performance is extremely slow. Sometimes I think it would be better for McDonald's to get rid of their free Wi-Fi service because it is very irritating and takes away from the Maccas experience. Either provide a decent service or none, but a half-hearted effort as Maccas currently do isn't up to their standard.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
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