[gruez]

What if legal wants to show a TOS page, or you want finer grained authentication than a shared key?

>Or do not offer internet access at all. People carry their own already-connected devices anyway.

Travelers don't typically have gigabytes of bandwidth to spare. I for one like having unmetered internet access even when there's theoretically internet access available through roaming (absurdly expensive) or esims (expensive)

[snvzz]

>What if legal wants to show a TOS page?

The reality is that nobody wants to bother with any of that.

Either just connect me to the internet without extra steps, or don't at all. Don't waste my time.

[gruez]

>The reality is that nobody wants to bother with any of that.

I don't either, but for IT departments in large organizations, ignoring the legal department isn't an option.

[immibis]

Gues they just won't provide access then. Oh, what's that? There's a reason they need to provide access? Well, too bad the IT standards people invented a way to make sure we didn't interfere!

[notpushkin]

I appreciate the sentiment, but having a shitty Wi-Fi is better than none at all IMO.

[stephenr]

> or you want finer grained authentication than a shared key?

Configure your access points to use RADIUS or SAML for auth?

[gruez]

Is WPA enterprise authentication still a dumpster fire? Last time I set it up it was still a hassle because you had to import CAs and manually choose the authentication protocol. Definitely not a good experience for someone who's stopping by a cafe for 30min and wants wifi.

[stephenr]

In your coffee shop-like scenario, what benefit does a captive portal on anonymous Wifi offer to either the customer or the coffee shop, over regular Wifi authentication, and a sign on the wall that says "wifi username/passowrd is..."

As for importing a private CA. Use a certificate trusted by a public CA and you won't have this problem?

[gruez]

>In your coffee shop-like scenario, what benefit does a captive portal on anonymous Wifi offer to either the customer or the coffee shop, over regular Wifi authentication, and a sign on the wall that says "wifi username/passowrd is..."

From an access control perspective, it probably doesn't matter much for a coffee shop, but matters more for something for a hotel where you want to limit to certain guests only (eg. ones with room or loyalty program members)

From a legal perspective, having an interstitial might provide cover for when a baddie uses the connection to order drugs or whatever. IANAL and I'm not sure whether it's actually needed or not, but most companies rather not risk it. Moreover it's unlikely that no jurisdictions require it, so you'd still support for it.

>As for importing a private CA. Use a certificate trusted by a public CA and you won't have this problem?

No idea. Last time I had to use WPA enterprise, the organization providing the connection isn't exactly small and couldn't afford a certificate, but still required me to import a CA. That makes me think it might be an inherent issue with WPA enterprise.

[stephenr]

> Legal cover for when a baddie uses the connection to order drugs or whatever.

.... Is this meant to be a joke?

> still required me to import a CA

It's reasonably likely that they wanted it to only work on known devices with their private CA cert installed; but either way, and regardless of the technology in question, I wouldn't suggest it's particularly meaningful to use one organisation's setup as the basis for how things inherently work.

[gruez]

>.... Is this meant to be a joke?

Are you a lawyer? I wasn't making a definitive statement, but if you have stronger evidence to the contrary please present them rather than making shallow dismissals.

>It's reasonably likely that they wanted it to only work on known devices with their private CA cert installed

It's an organization where BYOD is very common.

[chikere232]

If someone makes you import a CA, you have to assume they intend to eavesdrop on ssl encrypted communications. Enterprise WPA doesn't require it.

The right flavour of incompetence might get you there without bad intentions but really if you give someone the capability of eavesdropping you have to behave as if they're intending to use it

[gruez]

Doesn't seem like it. For instance the WPA enterprise setup dialog has a field specifically for a CA certificate[1]. Other OSes have something similar [2]. Presumably that's only used for WPA authentication purposes rather than being added as a sytem CA.

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1317320/how-can-i-automatica...

[2] https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/Encryption_and_Authentic...