Interesting. I may have accidentally stumbled on this hack a few years ago when I was sitting in an airport.
I had downloaded the (I believe) Boingo iOS app, which works by performing an in-app purchase for the amount of time you want to use their wireless network in the airport. I followed the directions exactly as specified, but instead of getting a "Purchase Completed" message I got a "declined" message. Despite not having paid for the wireless network time after that I was still able to connect and use the Internet without problem.
It may be that because un-authorized users are sometimes given walled garden DNS settings, it was causing a bit of confusion within the in-app purchasing system that results in free wifi for me.
(My alternative explanation is that I hadn't updated the expiration date on my credit card, so the purchase was declined but Boingo's app didn't differentiate between success and error from the App Store's system so I got the wifi anyway. I think this explanation is still the likely candidate.)
In any case, I told Boingo about the bug when I found it and after convincing them that it was their job to fix it and not mine. Since this was a few years ago I hope they've fixed the problem.
I had downloaded the (I believe) Boingo iOS app, which works by performing an in-app purchase for the amount of time you want to use their wireless network in the airport. I followed the directions exactly as specified, but instead of getting a "Purchase Completed" message I got a "declined" message. Despite not having paid for the wireless network time after that I was still able to connect and use the Internet without problem.
It may be that because un-authorized users are sometimes given walled garden DNS settings, it was causing a bit of confusion within the in-app purchasing system that results in free wifi for me.
(My alternative explanation is that I hadn't updated the expiration date on my credit card, so the purchase was declined but Boingo's app didn't differentiate between success and error from the App Store's system so I got the wifi anyway. I think this explanation is still the likely candidate.)
In any case, I told Boingo about the bug when I found it and after convincing them that it was their job to fix it and not mine. Since this was a few years ago I hope they've fixed the problem.