REAL LIFE NEWS: WIFI NAME SPARKS TERROR ALERT ON PLANE
by Hazed
As if there’s not enough to worry about when going through airport security, now you need to check that the name you give to your wifi hotspot isn’t going to suggest that you are a terrorist.
An American Airlines flight was delayed for several hours at Los Angeles airport a few days ago because a passenger noticed his smartphone had identified a nearby network called “Al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork” (yes, it was spelled that badly). I don’t know whether this was a wifi networked owned by a resident near to the airport, or a hotspot on someone else’s smartphone. Whichever it was, it showed up in the list of available wifi networks which anyone using a smartphone would be familiar with.
Broadband subscribers who use a home wifi network often rename their network, changing it from the random set of letters and numbers it starts out with to something personal – the name of their house, their family name, their favourite sports team, even. Some go for more quirky names, or names aimed at potential users of the wifi network: “Mom, click here for internet” at one extreme, or “Get off my WLAN” at the other.
But when jokers call their networks things like “ISIS HQ” or “Terrorist WiFi”, it can spark a security alert.
In the case of the grounded plane, police conducted an investigation which lasted several hours before deciding there were no security problems. The flight was rescheduled for the next day.
I am sure the rest of the passengers were roundly cursing whoever thought that naming their network Al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork was a funny joke.
