Free Public Wi-Fi.
No three words since “Star Wars Prequels” have ever created such enormous hope followed
by such immediate disappointment.
We all know the curse of Free Public Wi-Fi: you’re in a public place, say an airport,
or a cafe, or Mr. Beast’s abandoned Squid Game set, and you’re trying to connect to
the internet to check Twitter or Google “Escape Mr. Beast Compound How To”, but all the
networks have passwords.
But just as you’re giving up hope, you see salvation: an open network called Free Public
Wi-Fi.
So you connect, but then, of course, it doesn’t work.
In fact, it feels like every time you’ve tried connecting to Free Public Wi-Fi, it’s
never worked.
Well, I’m here today to do what your father never would: validate your feelings.
Because it doesn’t just feel like Free Public Wi-Fi never works–it actually never works.
In fact, it’s impossible for it to work, because, rplot twist… it isn’t even Wi-Fi.
Bum bum BUMMMM.
In order to understand what’s going on here, we have to talk about WWW: Wi-Fi, WANET, and
Windows XP.
Wi-Fi, of course, is short for Wi-Fi.
That’s right, Wi-Fi doesn’t stand for Wireless Fidelity, nor does it stand for Wiley
Fiferson, the name of my neighbor whose Wi-Fi I steal, nor does it stand for “Wife Fire,”
which is the answer Wiley Fiferson always gives me when I ask him why he spent eight
years in jail.
No, Wi-Fi is a term that was invented by a marketing firm called Interbrand, because
for some reason they didn’t think its original name, “IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence,”
was likely to catch on.
Wi-Fi, as you likely know, is when a router, with a wired connection to the internet, sends
out a signal via radio waves, that your computer can connect to, thus giving it access to that
router’s wired internet connection, and the internet we know and love and are slowly
having our lives destroyed by.
WANET is different.
In the same way the Wario and Waluigi are dark, twisted, sexier versions of Mario and
Luigi, WANET is a dark, twisted, sexier version of the internet.
WANET stands for Wireless Ad Hoc Network, and basically, it’s a network that doesn’t
rely on any pre-existing internet infrastructure, like routers.
Instead of connecting computers to the internet like Wi-Fi, WANET—and this is important—just
connects computers to other computers, each of which serves as a node in a new, tiny network
of just those computers.
But what does all of this have to do with why Free Public Wi-Fi won’t let me Google
“How Long Human Can Survive On Squid Game Cookies?”
Well, that’s where the third W comes in: Windows XP–the 2001 Microsoft-developed
operating system that gave us an impossibly deep, Rosebud-like connection to this picture.
The Free Public Wi-Fi debacle can be traced to a single, obscure step in Windows XP’s
internet connection protocols.
To explain, let’s watch a short video.
You may be familiar with the famous video of Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston explaining
Windows 95, but did you know that Microsoft made a video for Windows XP starring the biggest
TV star of 2001, Tony Soprano?
Well, here it is.
Look, it’s me, Tony Soprano.
Gabagool, et cetera.
Alright, so, when a computer running Windows XP wants to connect to a network, it uses
a system called Wireless Auto Configuration, which goes through four steps.
First, it tries to connect to any visible Wi-Fi networks that are in your computer’s
list of “preferred networks.”
If that doesn’t work, then it tries to connect to any non-visible Wi-Fi networks that are
in your list of preferred networks.
That way, if you have a Wi-Fi network that doesn’t broadcast its SSID for privacy or
security reasons, your computer will still connect.
If that doesn’t work, it attempts to connect to any WANET networks in its list of preferred
networks.
And if that fails, then finally, if the computer has a WANET network in its list of preferred
networks, but it can’t find it, it will try to make that network itself; configuring
it’s own wireless network adapter to be the first node in that network.
Alright, enjoy Windows XP, and remember: fugget about it.
Wow, that video was great; he sounded just like Tony Soprano.
Anyways, that fourth step is the key to this whole thing.
You see, at some point, someone running Windows XP added a WANET network called “Free Public
Wi-Fi” to their list of preferred networks.
We don’t know who it was, but when in doubt, I choose to blame Barack Obama.
Anyways, at some point, that person, possibly Barack Obama, was in a public place, and their
computer’s Wireless Auto Configuration couldn’t find a Wi-Fi network, and it couldn’t find
a WANET network, so then it made itself the first node in the WANET network in its preferred
list: a network called “Free Public Wi-Fi.”
And then, someone else in that public place was trying to connect to the internet, and
they saw that there was a network near them called “Free Public Wi-Fi.”
So they tried to connect, but of course, when they did, they weren’t connecting to Wi-Fi,
they were just connecting to that first person’s computer as part of a WANET network.
But in doing so, they added “Free Public Wi-Fi” to their list of preferred networks.
And the next time they were somewhere unable to connect to the internet, their computer
made itself the first node in a WANET network called Free Public Wi-Fi, and other people
tried to connect to it, and the bug spread and spread and spread, like a zombie plague
or, well, a regular plague.
Windows later fixed the bug in 2008 with Windows XP SP3, but seeing as people update their
operating systems about as often as I update the Sam From Wendover channel, that didn’t
stop the bug.
These days, only about 0.6% of computers run on Windows XP, which is why you don’t see
Free Public Wi-Fi too often anymore––but remember, if you’re in an airport, stay
away from Free Public Wi-Fi, or your computer could be infected.
Also, you know, stay away from people, or you could get infected.
So, want to see what I had for dinner two nights before this video went out?
This: crispy parmesan chicken with garlic scallion couscous and lemony roasted carrots.
It was really good, pretty quick to make, and I didn’t even have to waste time at
the grocery store thanks to Hello Fresh.
That’s because last week I selected this and other meals on the app, then at the start
of this week a box showed up on my doorstep with all the ingredients I needed organized
by which meal they were for, and already split up into the right portions.
This made the cooking process much quicker and assured that there was no food waste at
the end–which is good for my wallet and the environment.
This is all entirely true–I was using HelloFresh for almost a year before they sponsored us,
and I genuinely value the way they make cooking quicker so I don’t resort to eating unhealthy
and expensive takeout or frozen food.
So, I’d encourage you to try HelloFresh–click the button on-screen or go to HelloFresh.com
and use code HAI16 for up to 16 free meals and 3 surprise gifts.