(assuming your based in the USA)
For the 'employee' one I agree as well, remove the splash page if your already using a PSK for that. Should solve that issue at least.
First let me say that I am not a lawyer. What I am is passionate about seamless wireless =P
If your legal department for the library says you need one then by all means, follow their instructions accordingly.
However because your going to have a splash page your going to run into issues like you've stated, which is why myself, and other wireless people in the industry are so against them.
As for the whole captive portal/splash page thing.
I use to do work at a large university, many thousands of students, very large, thousands of access points. They would get a letter in the mail almost weekly about mis-use and users downloading content and tormenting etc. First time I saw this happen, the guy opened up the letter, realized what it was, and walked over and tossed it in the trash.
From all the discussions I have had with other wireless people, the captive portal apparently doesn't serve any real legal purpose. It might make management/legal department feel at ease, but otherwise from all I've talked and read about, that's about it (other than cause issues for IT department lol).
It certainly is a debatable topic, with people on both sides of the fence, but that fence has been leaning more and more towards getting rid of them as time passes, and wireless becomes a staple everywhere.
I would certainly advice that it might be in your best interest to implement content filtering at a minimum, to avoid people from being able to torrent and what not. That I do recommend.
Bottom line is anyone can TRY to sue for this, but winning the case is another story. Has yet to be done as far as I've been able to find online. AUP/ToS page isn't going to stop it from happening, so your legal department is going to get good at throwing crumpled up paper into the trash like a basketball unless you start blocking it 😃
Large companies have done away with them, like Apple, Disney, Google, major international airports etc., so that the guest experience is trouble free. If those legal teams concluded it ain't necessary, then the rest should follow their lead haha.
Here are some links on the topic:
Do both SSID's have splash page configured? (If so why? if they do the same thing why not just use one etc.)
How do you have your splash page configured (screenshot here would help), to see frequency etc.
Are all the access points on the same VLAN/subnet for authentication purposes or are they going from one L3 network to another?
Assuming we are talking just a single network correct? Or is one building network-1 and another building network-2 etc. type of deal.
What version firmware is the network operating on?
Going to assume people see 'Library Free Wi-Fi' and they click it, pulls up a splash page with a bunch of stuff nobody reads, and a button that says 'Accept' and then they click it and now they are 'on the line' etc.
If you could convince management to do away with it, oh what a wonderful world it would be. People connect to that 'Library Free Wi-Fi' SSID and WHABAM ! they are on and done and nobody has any issues ever again WHIPPIE !
Tell your boss they don't need a splash page telling them they are in the library. They are the ones physically there, they should already know where they are lol. Don't make it any harder =P
Hi Nolan,
Whew! Thanks for the response. I see you're kind of a big deal so... I'll do my best here. 🙂
I think that staff do connect to both SSIDs, arbitrarily. One SSID is called "encrypted," and has a password, the other is just "free." I know that the worst reason to keep doing something is because that's the way it's always been done, but, to be honest, that's the reason why we still have two public SSIDs. I'm happy to do away with the encrypted SSID.
All APs are on the same VLAN.
This is a single network.
Firmware MR 25.13
So, we only recently implemented the splash page, and we HAD to, because we received a whole slew of Copyright Infringement notices. Somebody was doing some peer-to-peer activities here in our free wifi. I did block peer to peer in the firewall, but to satisfy the copyright office I had to post the compliance agreement. =D
Thank you Nolan!!
@LibraryGirl wrote:One SSID is called "encrypted," and has a password
I would suggest that implementing both a pre-shared key and a splash page is unnecessary and makes for a poor user experience. My preference here would be to remove the splash page off the encrypted SSID, and direct your staff to use the encrypted SSID and not the "Free" SSID.
(assuming your based in the USA)
For the 'employee' one I agree as well, remove the splash page if your already using a PSK for that. Should solve that issue at least.
First let me say that I am not a lawyer. What I am is passionate about seamless wireless =P
If your legal department for the library says you need one then by all means, follow their instructions accordingly.
However because your going to have a splash page your going to run into issues like you've stated, which is why myself, and other wireless people in the industry are so against them.
As for the whole captive portal/splash page thing.
I use to do work at a large university, many thousands of students, very large, thousands of access points. They would get a letter in the mail almost weekly about mis-use and users downloading content and tormenting etc. First time I saw this happen, the guy opened up the letter, realized what it was, and walked over and tossed it in the trash.
From all the discussions I have had with other wireless people, the captive portal apparently doesn't serve any real legal purpose. It might make management/legal department feel at ease, but otherwise from all I've talked and read about, that's about it (other than cause issues for IT department lol).
It certainly is a debatable topic, with people on both sides of the fence, but that fence has been leaning more and more towards getting rid of them as time passes, and wireless becomes a staple everywhere.
I would certainly advice that it might be in your best interest to implement content filtering at a minimum, to avoid people from being able to torrent and what not. That I do recommend.
Bottom line is anyone can TRY to sue for this, but winning the case is another story. Has yet to be done as far as I've been able to find online. AUP/ToS page isn't going to stop it from happening, so your legal department is going to get good at throwing crumpled up paper into the trash like a basketball unless you start blocking it 😃
Large companies have done away with them, like Apple, Disney, Google, major international airports etc., so that the guest experience is trouble free. If those legal teams concluded it ain't necessary, then the rest should follow their lead haha.
Here are some links on the topic:
