Chiang Mai (Thailand) – Finding Internet access and an open hotspot can be a pain in the you know what. In such cases, hackers typically rely on geeky cards, computers and utilities and since I need upload stories from anywhere in the world, I usually have a laptop with NetStumbler, Wireshark and Cain installed and my trusty AirPcap Tx card readily available. But as I discovered last night, all of these high-tech tools were no match for the almighty Dollar, or in this case, the Thai Baht.

Free Wi-Fi is easily found in most major cities in Thailand, including Bangkok and Pattaya in Thailand. In a previous column, I talked about how a local McDonalds actually had actually the fastest Internet access in the neighborhood.  However, the northern city of Chiang Mai near Burma and Laos is a different story.

It was 6 pm and I had been hunting for an open hotspot for two hours. Meanwhile, on the east coast of the United States it was 6 am and people were just waking up and many of them would be checking TG Daily for the latest tech news. So, how do you find Internet access or a hotspot, if you are under time pressure?

I had tried several Starbucks with its KSC Hotspot (Thailand's version of AT&T Hotspot), but the credit authentication page would always time out after I tried buying a day pass.  The same thing happened when I visited Thailand four months ago and shame on me for thinking that the company would have fixed it since then.

I decided to walk to the local computer center, Panthip Plaza, figuring it would be the best bet for getting a connection.  After all, the place is filled with small computer shops and there should be at least one available access point, right?  The top floor food court had plenty of empty tables and, as an added bonus, there were empty wall sockets with three-pronged connectors. Things were looking good.

Windows found an open hotspot and websites quickly started loading.  A few other pages opened, but then everything came to a halt : “Page not found”. You know this message.

I turned off the laptop wireless feature and plugged in my AirPcap USB stick.  This amazing device is a very sensitive Wi-Fi sniffer and this particular model can also transmit data.  Granted it costs an arm and a leg, but in cases like this it is worth every penny.  I fire up the latest version of Cain and the wireless info page shows ten hotspots and eight of them, including the one I was on, are on Channel 6.  Houston we have a problem.

I noticed one of the access points in my reach was WEP encrypted and  was happily blasting away on Channel 11.  For WEP cracking, Cain can sniff “weak” unique IV packets and after enough data has been captured, you can launch either an Aircrack or PTW crack.  Usually, you need tens to hundreds of thousands of such packets and it seemed I actually might get them fairly quickly with this access point.  Boy, was this guy doing some serious traffic and the unique IV count was going up by 150 to 200 a second.

But while the packet count looked impressive, a quick number crunch showed that I was in for a long night and that it would be at least 45 minutes of capturing before I could even attempt to take a shot at  this WEP key.  Then I had another idea.

Why wouldn’t I just find the store and ask the employee for the key?  I was concentrating so much on all of  my wazoo gear and was falling into an old trap of “If you have a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.”

I knew the SSID name, so I walked around looking for a store with the same name.  Unfortunately there were no matches, but again this was another mistake in thinking on my part.  What I was looking for was not the name of the store, but for a particular wireless router and a laptop, something that Cain clearly identified by the MAC or hardware addresses as a Linksys/Cisco router and an Apple notebook.

Within a minute, I walked into a DVD duplicating store and the lone employee was staring at his Apple MacBook.  A bright blue Linksys wireless router was propped on top of a spindle of blank DVDs.  He didn't even notice me, probably because his eyeballs were glued to a streaming video that could have explained the huge packet count

“Excuse me, do you have Internet here?” I asked with a smile. He looked up to me and told me in Thai that it is only for the store.

I don’t give up that easily. I did not know whether he was the owner or just an employee of the store , but figured that he may be willing to give the WEP key away.  Perhaps I could buy myself a few minutes and maybe a little money will help grease the wheels?  I pulled out a bright green 20 Baht note. Now, don't get all excited, because it's only worth about 66 cents.

He looked at the bill, showed some interest and said “cannot”.  Ok, let's try this one again. I showed him a shiny blue 50 Baht bill.  Now we are at $1.60.

He smiles, I smile and after some quick scribbling he handed me the 10-digit key written on the back of a ripped up old receipt.  I forked over the money and he gasped “Oh ho” which, roughly translated, means “wow”.

I returned to my seat in the food court, plugged my laptop back into the wall socket and entered the WEP key. After a few seconds of “Acquiring an IP Address”, I was surfing the web at pretty decent speeds.

The take-away of this experience?  Don't get too enamored with your gear and you don't have to be all James Bondish by sniffing traffic and running AirCrack when you are looking for wireless internet access, especially when you are travelling abroad. Just ask for the key! It just might actually work and, at least in this part of the world, some people certainly don't mind if you slip them some cash.



Disclaimer: While passive sniffing tools do not violate U.S. regulations, accessing or attempting to access a network other than your own (or have permissions to use) is illegal in the U.S. and may be illegal in other jurisdictions around the world.   

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