Mattias the hacker

The rain period is here and the weather is normally rainy in the afternoons and evenings. This seems to have culminated at my most recent stop, the city San Miguel de Allende. The city is famous for its architecture, its many language schools and, of course, the birthplace of the city's favourite son Ignacio Allende. Allende became a strong believer in the need for Mexican independence and played a key role in the independence movement that started 1810.

I was not able to take in much of the city's beauty between the depressing showers so I hoped to use the hostel's free wireless network to finally throughly check my email and update MyEndlessWeekend. In order to connect, a network key was needed but strangely noone in the hostel reception knew about this. They only said that it was free, that it was just to connect and to do whatever I want. There had been some people with similar problems in the past however (reeeeallly???).

To resolve the situation, I used the stationary computer in the common room, managed to hack into the router by searching for default passwords on internet (the hostel owner didn't change it) and removed the encryption to give any computer access. Just to be on the safe side I also changed the password so only I can log in to the router. Therefore, there should until this day be a free wireless hotspot on the street.


Picture 1) A small street in San Miguel de Allende, featuring a local bar.

Picture 2) The shady central square with the cathedral's "wedding-cake tower" in the background.