Re: attwifi ssid

[Marshal Graham <marshal.graham () gmail com>]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. I think we have confirmed what I
already suspected, a large number (but not all) of AT&T smartphones
blindly connect to any AP broadcasting a attwifi ssid. There also may
not always be an obvious way to disable this behavior.

I've attached a screenshot (does this list allow attachments?) from my
Motorola Atrix (android) phone. There are two things worth noticing.
First, there is an option called Auto-connect and the description is
"Automatically connect to an available AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spot." It's
possible that not all AT&T Androids have this option. Second, the
little globe icon in the upper left corner. That only appears when I'm
connected to an attwifi ssid. It is supposed to be an indication that
this is an AT&T hotspot. In this case, I am using a rouge AT&T hotspot
but I still get the globe icon.

I'm still not sure exactly how wide spread this issue is but it is
definitely exhibited by a large number of AT&T devices from multiple
vendors. For those that still doubt this, just stand up an AP with an
ssid of attwifi in a crowded location (and then prepare to exceed your
bandwidth caps).

Marshal


On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 9:14 AM, James Philput <jamesphilput () gmail com> wrote:
> In order to confirm what I remember, and what others have said about the
> auto-connect function, I decided to test it with an iPad 1 from my lab at
> work. I can confirm that this device has never before been used to connect
> to the attwifi SSID.  I went to the local Starbucks, and turned on wifi.
>  The iPad immediately connected to the attwifi SSID.  It did not ask as it
> does with unknown networks, it just connected.  I checked the settings for
> that network, and just as I'd seen on my phone, there was no "Forget this
> network" button, as there is for other iDevices.  Instead there was an
> on/off slider labeled "Auto-Join".
>
> James
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 5:42 PM, Marshal Graham <marshal.graham () gmail com>
> wrote:
> > I'm positive that I did not have to initiate the first connection to
> > attwifi. The first time I noticed it was in a McDonald's and I noticed
> > it later at a Sam's Club. I have never "told" my phone to connect to
> > attwifi, it does this automatically. This is pretty well confirmed
> > judging by the number of devices that blindly connect to attwifi and
> > the presence of an Android option to "Automatically connect to an
> > available AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spot."
> >
> > Marshal
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 3:12 PM, Chris Frederick <cdf123 () cdf123 net>
> > wrote:
> > > I have heard of this behavior on the iPhone, and from what I know, if
> > > you connect to any wifi the phone will remember the ssid and the mac, if
> > > it sees these in the future it will auto connect.  But attwifi is
> > > different in that it doesn't check the mac, only the ssid is needed.
> > >
> > > I have seen that if you do _not_ connect to any attwifi, it won't auto
> > > connect, you need to initiate the initial connection to one.  I would
> > > assume that if you tell the phone to delete the connection while it's in
> > > range, it will stop auto-connecting.
> > >
> > > I have a 3GS and a 4S and have tested this a bit.  I've never connected
> > > my 4S to attwifi, and it's never auto-connected, but I did on the 3GS
> > > but I reset the phone before I was in range of a different attwifi spot.
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
> > > On 01/11/12 12:54, Marshal Graham wrote:
> > > > Here is an issue I just recently became aware of. I did a little
> > > > research and was not able to discover much related to this. If it's
> > > > already been discussed, I'll apologize in advance. AT&T smartphones
> > > > will automatically connect to a ssid of attwifi. Several people have
> > > > verified this by simply setting a ssid of attwifi with no encryption.
> > > > We have seen iPhone 4, Android, and Blackberry devices from AT&T
> > > > connect this way. It was also reported that AT&T 3G iPad/iPad2 devices
> > > > do this as well. On the Motorola Atrix, the AT&T logo appear to
> > > > indicate you are connected to an AT&T hot spot. iPhone 3GS does not
> > > > appear to exhibit this behavior.
> > > >
> > > > At least some Android devices do have an option to disable this
> > > > behavior through the settings menu. Aside from disabling wifi, I
> > > > cannot find this option on iPhone or Blackberry. To be clear, this is
> > > > AT&T specific. A little Google searching revealed this from May 2011,
> > > >
> > > > http://gobitech.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-recently-decided-to-conduct-little.html,
> > > > but not much else. Either this is not as much of an issue as I think
> > > > it might be or it has just been ignored. It would seem to fall into
> > > > the same category as using a ssid of linksys or Free Public WiFi. This
> > > > could be a little worse since at least some devices give you an
> > > > indication you are connecting to a real AT&T hotspot. Anyone have
> > > > thoughts about this?
> > > >
> > > > To make sure I give proper attribution, this was originally pointed
> > > > out to me by Mark Rupright.
> > > >
> > > > Marshal
> > > > _______________________________________________
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