Totally fun CNET article from the NY Times about the pitfalls of connecting to public hot spots and actually getting out onto the "real" and worldwide Internet. I love this "problem":

In this case, some hapless individual's private Internet bubble is probably bleeding through the walls--somebody who didn't, or couldn't, change the hot spot's default name. The only obstacle is the ethical one: Should you enjoy a free connection by exploiting somebody's cluelessness?

I'm sorry to say that yes, I will enjoy a free connection. Mind you, I won't go changing their router password or upgrading their firmware to get better range like some people, but I very likely will connect, especially if it routes me out to the world. Does that make me a bad person? Would you do it?

What I find interesting is that this article highlights the real issues when connecting to hot spots - something that is frequently forgotten by owners of various wireless devices. For example, Sony's PSP is wireless-ready, so initially all these kids raved about going to Starbucks and playing each other online. Great idea, but it won't work - T-Mobile's hot spot network requires you to fire up a browser and log in - something that the PSP can't do just yet.

That's one of the reasons why I like my T-Mobile/HP h6315 - the T-Mobile ROM has a preconfigured wireless network that uses 802.1x security, so I can just store my login credentials, and the device automatically connects when in range of the network. Without that little thoughtful touch I'd be in a hot spot, yet still downloading e-mail over GPRS - on a Wi-Fi enabled device!

Microsoft just released an update for machines with Windows XP SP2 that adds support for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) and Wireless Provisioning Services Information Element (WPS IE). From what I've seen, Wireless Provisioning Services seems like a neat idea to solve some of the hot spot connection problems, but the usual caveats apply: the hot spot must run it, your laptop/tablet has to support it, so do your other wireless gizmos, and so forth. Thus we probably won't see a commonly used solution to this problem for quite a while.