Yeah, i haven't seen it discussed anywhere, so i thought i would mention a little 'workaround' for Comcast internet.
You see, Comcast rent's out a few models of dual band router to customers for the express purpose of spreading 'low cost' wifi to the masses. And while the 2.4 Ghz band is reserved for the customer renting the router, the 5 Ghz band is actually public (and supposedly seperate from the customers account). To use the 5 Ghz band (which broadcasts publicly as xfinity, with absolutely no security) all you have to do is sign in with your comcast customer account details. Now, this is reasonably fast wifi, but if you are not a Comcast customer you will be charged $2.99 an hour...
or sign up for a free one hour trial. Just enter an email address and zip code and VOILA! You can sign up for this free hour twice a month, but not within 24 hours because the router logs your mac address.
unless you are an industrious linux user.
1) install macchanger (sudo apt-get install macchanger)
2) copy/paste script
sudo service network-manager stop && sudo macchanger wlan0 -A && sudo service network-manager start
3) after your wifi card resets connect to the router, open a new tab and go to any webpage. you'll be redirected to a new login page. enter "your" credentials and enjoy a free hour. When your hour is up rinse and repeat.
there are a few options available for macchanger.:
**-r ** gives a completely random mac address that really make no since. As of this post, macchanger 1.7.0 is broken and -r will return your real MAC address, but older versions work correctly.
-A gives a working random mac from a random vendor (Cysco, Konami, Apple, Broadcom)
-a gives a random mac from the same vendor
-l lists all vendors
and of course, you can enter a new MAC manually
(sudo macchanger wlan0 01:23:45:67:89:ab)
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[–] ShimmyShimmy ago
sounds like too much trouble. It is easy enough to find a library, or starbucks. They are errywhrrr.