Tangentially related: a clever coffee shop / cafe that offered free wifi changed the name of its network every day, updating it to broadcast whatever their special was. You could not join without thinking (momentarily) about "Corn Chowder, $2" or "Chocolate Chip Cookies - buy one get one free, today only."
Yes, they had specials boards, but people ignore those. The network, on the other hand, was unavoidable. From what I understand, this tecnique was extraordinarily effective. Something about clicking on the name of the item triggered an expectation that you were going to get the item. As you sat there, drinking coffee and futzing on Facebook, you'd keep thinking about the special that part of you was now expecting.
I suspect the "free" wifi paid for itself very swiftly.
One network name I've enjoyed seeing recently is of the form "DEA Mobile Surveillance Unit #8". I presume this is a good joke rather than a clueless Drug Enforcement team...
Oddly idiotic blogspam, obviously no one cares if someone tries and fails to connect to their secured network, as if people just sat there guessing passwords anyway.
The article says that most people don't shut off broadcasting the SSID on their router because it's too much hassle. Really? The option on mine took less than a minute to turn off. Then once I set up the machines I use, they connect automatically. Should someone want to use my wifi, I'd just give them the SSID and password. It's not that big a deal, and I have all the security I can get short of setting a hardwired VPN up. The risk of bad things being downloaded aside, why would you want someone tying up bandwidth and slowing your connection down? I don't get it.
Just yesterday we had a rogue WAP show up in our building called Virus23. One of our developers was using his phone to broadcast that SSID and his Android tablet was connecting to it. He used that name for the same reason. It made us in IT a bit nervous till we figured out what it was.
I used a similar strategy with a 5 day stay in a hospital that didn't have WiFi. I tethered my phone and made a protected network called "$10/day - go to room 515". I was actually expecting to get a few clients, but no one ever did visit me.
Yes, they had specials boards, but people ignore those. The network, on the other hand, was unavoidable. From what I understand, this tecnique was extraordinarily effective. Something about clicking on the name of the item triggered an expectation that you were going to get the item. As you sat there, drinking coffee and futzing on Facebook, you'd keep thinking about the special that part of you was now expecting.
I suspect the "free" wifi paid for itself very swiftly.