Longest password for free wifi
Jul 11th, 2012, 12:41 PM
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 3,293
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Longest password for free wifi
Last week I got off the train in a town called Agde, France and saw a cafe with a free wifi sign. Since I had an hour to kill for the bus to arrive, I treated myself to a cup of coffee and then inquired about the free wifi. The password was 26 characters long! I got it on the second try. If you are in Agde, the password is 3111637DGFF44CA6127E421DF3. Has anyone had an experience similar to this?
Jul 11th, 2012, 04:31 PM
#5
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,369
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
The password "3111637DGFF44CA6127E421DF3" is supposed to be a number; it was probably randomly generated. It's in hexdecimal format. Unlike decimal (1-10) hexdecimal uses base 16 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11...). The reason computers like hexdecimal is that they use binary logic to store and manipulate numbers. 16 is 2 to the 4th power, so base 16 works very well to store binary numbers. Base 10 (decimal) works great for humans because we have ten fingers, but it's lousy for representing binary numbers compactly.
But you've probably typed it wrong; "G" is not a digit. You probably meant "6" . You have the right number of characters (26) for a 128 bit WEP key (wireless password), though. WEP is really old and obsolete (and horribly insecure). It forces you to use a number like that for a password. Modern wireless routers use WPA2 which lets you choose a simple text password instead of a 26 digit number!
But you've probably typed it wrong; "G" is not a digit. You probably meant "6" . You have the right number of characters (26) for a 128 bit WEP key (wireless password), though. WEP is really old and obsolete (and horribly insecure). It forces you to use a number like that for a password. Modern wireless routers use WPA2 which lets you choose a simple text password instead of a 26 digit number!
Jul 11th, 2012, 11:01 PM
#6
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 1,707
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
This is certainly common in France - our Orange Livebox (router) has a similar code. The consolation is that once you have entered it (which often means doing it a second time to confirm) you are recognized and don't have to do it again.
