There is something missing from the English article, which is a shame. In the French article [1], he talks about another story at the end that implies lights.
He was able to control lights from all the bedrooms in another hotel by putting his laptop between the tablets controlling the lights and the ethernet cables. Funny story, the IP adresses were assigned based on the bedroom number, eg the bedroom 714 had an IP of 172.16.20 7.14.
Edit: my bad, the second story was included in the French article but was written by another person, Matthew Garrett. Here is the story in English: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/40505.html
Assigning IPs based on room number seems quite practical.
I noticed something quite similar at my old residential block, where wifi was provided building wide. When you connected to the (open) WiFi network you were in a VLAN with all other unauthenticated devices. Attempts to access the internet directed you to a captive portal. After signing in (it was over HTTPS) you were then punted in to your own VLAN, where you could see all your other authenticated devices on layer 2. The system remembered your MAC so you only had to do the captive portal once
> The system remembered your MAC so you only had to do the captive portal once
Staying in a Marriott in Oklahoma last week and my laptop joined the wifi. Captive portal said "welcome back Adam, click here to connect" WTF? How did they know who I am?
When connecting my phone I got a prompt to enter my room number / name and select higher speeds (which I get free for premium status) and saw the checkbox labeled "remember my device" ah, so, that's how they remembered me.
Did some digging and the last time I was in a Marriott was in 2019 (Thanks Pandemic!). In Tel-Aviv. Equal parts creepy and impressive and slick.
We had something similar in one place I lived, sans VLANs I think, but not sure if it makes any diff?
With wireshark you could figure out the MACs available on the network and use the signin of someone else when they were not online by using their MAC adress.
It's not actually missing from the English article. The French translation just combined two hotel-related articles into one, the light story is from another author.
I did this when we set up a VPN for the our chain of retail stores: store 312 got 10.X.3.12, for example. Extremely handy for status checks since everyone in the company (including local managers) referred to stores by number.
He was able to control lights from all the bedrooms in another hotel by putting his laptop between the tablets controlling the lights and the ethernet cables. Funny story, the IP adresses were assigned based on the bedroom number, eg the bedroom 714 had an IP of 172.16.20 7.14.
Edit: my bad, the second story was included in the French article but was written by another person, Matthew Garrett. Here is the story in English: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/40505.html
[1]: https://linuxfr.org/news/son-et-lumiere-a-l-hotel