Since moving into my new apartment last August, I’ve enjoyed free WiFi courtesy of one of my neighbours. I’m not sure whether it’s altruism or ignorance, but judging by their router’s SSID (”default”), my money’s on the latter. Anyway, for the past few months, it’s been great — a nice, strong, reliable signal. For free!
But the day I got back from New Year’s in Windsor, I realized something had changed. My old friend “default?” Encrypted! What was I to do?
- Hack the WEP encryption with Kismac?
- Hook up a complicated system of routers in my closet to borrow and redistribute another neighbour’s open signal?
- Go without the internet for a while and see what better things I can find to do with my time?
After some thought, I decided it might just be best to actually pay for my own internet access. Go figure. Now, as far as I know, there are only two companies that offer high-speed in Toronto: Bell and Rogers. I hate them both, but of the two, I hate Rogers the least. So, from Jenna’s laptop, I surfed on over to the Rogers site to see what the damage would be. I clicked on “Internet Services,” then “Promotions.” I typed in my postal code so the site could “provide [me] with the right products and services.”
This took me to a page with a list of specials. One of them looked pretty good:
Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet EXPRESS
- Save $3 per month for 12 months!
- Receive $10 rebate with your online order
- Free Basic Installation
- No term commitment required
Free installation? A discount for ordering online? No contract? “Hey,” I thought, “maybe paying for legit Internet won’t be so bad. Sign me up!” So I clicked “Order Now.” It took me to a page that asked for my name and address. Hurriedly, I typed them in, and clicked “Continue.” Then, this:
Wow, Rogers. You’re really inspiring confidence in your internet service product with that one.
Yeesh.
Comments 4
Oh, that’s brilliant, Dan. Reminds me of the time when I switched back to Bell Canada for my home phone service. They sent me a voicemail to tell me what my new voicemail password was. Um, the only problem was that I needed the password to retrieve their voicemail! Duh.
Posted 08 Jan 2007 at 7:59 am ¶Dan, I think this story makes you seem more virtuous than you really are. Regardless of your woes with Rogers, weren’t you the same guy who spent nearly two hours this weekend trying to get Kismac to work on my computer, so that you could hack your neighbours’ encrypted passwords later in the week?…
THE TRUTH!!!
Posted 08 Jan 2007 at 5:19 pm ¶Classic.
Gee, aren’t you glad you don’t have their new home phone service? If you did, and you experienced problems with your cable, YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO CALL THE “E-CARE” REP, EITHER!
One bill ain’t worth the many headaches.
(Holy crap, Dan! Was that a new post?!)
Posted 08 Jan 2007 at 10:08 pm ¶When I signed up with Rogers they sent me two modems. I thought I’d keep one as a spare. But then they started charging me double, despite their policy of only one account per address. They figured out a way to do that, by putting one account as a sub-account on my account. It took a half hour on the phone and a long walk to Bloor and Jarvis to return the modem to fix it.
Posted 07 Dec 2007 at 3:48 pm ¶Post a Comment