Free WiFi on the Train? Loophole ahoy…

I spend a lot of time on trains these days, and with most major routes providing pay as you go WiFi, I’m often tempted to whip out my card to feed my Twitter/RSS/Gmail addiction - only to baulk at the prices. Normally I resist, but in the spirit of experimentation, today I thought I’d at least start the sign up process and see how much bang I’d get for my buck. It turns out quite a bit (if you stop half way through the sign up).

After filling in a name/email/address form and being presented with a “Proceed to Payment” button, I realised that I was now already connected - before pressing the button, let alone entering my credit card details. Rather than simply unblocking the small subset of domains that would enable me to pay via a 3rd party, the filters unblocked the entire web once I got past this initial form. I then got a generous 10 minutes or so of unfettered web access before simply (re)filling in the form each time it ran out.

Obviously this won’t work everywhere, but it’s well worth testing next time you’re bored on the 8:07 to Liverpool…