Conversation

Fahim Farook

*Ring* - it's the doorbell.

The bell rings twice more before I even get to the door.

I open the door and there’s somebody standing in the doorway of our neighbour’s apartment. The angle is such that I can’t tell if they actually have the door open and are inside the apartment or are just standing in the doorway.

I look at them inquiringly.

“Can I have your WiFi password?” they say, holding up their phone.

I’m like, “What?”

“Your WiFi password. I just want to make a call,” they say as if this was the most normal thing.

“I don’t want to give you my password,” I say and close the door.

That really was the whole interaction. I’m just flabbergasted by the whole thing still. Did they really think that I’d simply hand over access to my WiFi to somebody I didn’t know? (I don’t know my neighbours and they’ve never spoken to me before …)

Do they understand the security implications of the whole thing? Or was it an emergency (like trying to make a call without anybody else knowing for some reason)? If it was an emergency, why didn’t they tell me so?

I don’t know … But I’m still wondering …

#People #Interactions #Security #WiFi #Neighbours
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@AngelaPreston IKR? It’s just that there are people from a lot of countries here and so I don’t know if it’s just that it’s normal for them to just approach people they don’t know and ask for their WiFi? Or was this somebody who really was up to no good?

I really can’t tell. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but when something like this happens …
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@f Our last router had two networks by default. One was for us and one was for guests. What we have now is even better - I can temporarily let someone one and I can see their device and boot them without any difficulty right from my own phone.

Even with all of that, I still would not have given that person access. Just sounds "off" to me.

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@AngelaPreston Yep, our router has the guest access feature too though I’ve never enabled it.

But as you said, why would you want to give a totally unknown person access even that way? If they’d bothered to introduce themselves and explain the situation, then may be. But if the first word out of their mouth is, “Can I have your WiFi password?” 😛
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