cant get to the net

we support a hotel using a Nomadix USG-II box as the interface between the hotel & the internet. It is in alot of ways a fancy router.

we field calls from hotel guests on why they cant get their laptops to talk to the net, some hotels are wired, some wireless. it can be interesting & frustrating.

the guest has to pass thru a webpage with an 'i agree' text then the are supposed to drop out of our program and to wherever their browser wants to go. but something is keeping them on our server after doing the 'i agree'.

recently we have run into several callers who are not getting on the net and receive a message telling them they are on the 'gateway' ip address in their address bar and it posts a message about a proxy and '0.0.0.1' that is coming (we think) from the Nomadix [the proxy server has encountered an error (host 0.0.0.1 is unreachable]

generally speaking an 0.0.0.1 is related to intercepting a popup and blocking of same. our experience is that often popup blockers (as well as firewalls) can give the hotel guest problems when trying to get thru our system to the net.

in the DAT log file from the server we can see lots of calls to 0.0.0.1 associated with the guests IP address. thats all they do is keep calling that dang 0.0.0.1.

the guests swear they've never put a popup blocker on, or are using a firewall, but they still dont get out. nor the new google or msn toolbars with a built-in blocker. we've gone thru the system tray questioning programs and not found a popup blocker.

sometimes even guests who have been in the hotel previously and are returning using the same equipment.

any ideas on what may be happening? never heard of a stealthy virus type program running around installing popup blockers.

a final thot came to mind late this afternoon. how bout a browser hijacking program that is trying to twist the browser out to some other ip address. if we are controlling the browser until the 'i agree' is checked perhaps the hijacker is interfering with that & the Nomdaix is throwing its hands up.

thanks.

 

Nomadix USG-II - interesting gadget. Wasn't familiar with them but did some reading after seeing this post.

If I'm understanding things correctly, you first do a home-page redirection to your page and then when they click on the 'I agree' button, the Nomadix sets their home page back to where it was before. So you have to hijack them as step #1 and un-hijack them as step #2 but your device does address translation the entire time they are connected.

I can certainly see how a PC with another, unfriendly hijack agent could go a little nutsoid.

Easiest way I can think of to see if your suspicion is correct is to get a copy of Ad-aware (and for this situation, I think the professional version would be worth the money) and run it on the next PC to have the problem. If that cures them, then you have your answer.

Might be interesting to do a tracert on their PC and use the address they should be reaching when they 'I agree'. Seeing exactly where it fails might tell you something.