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Using G+ in different countries

F

Ferdi Blauber

Lurker
Greetings,

recently I've been in Mexico and tried to get access to my Google+ account using the hotel's WIFI network. Unfortunately I was blocked and Google warned me that a hacker would have tried to get access to my account. In case it was me trying to use my own account, I should log in and grant permission for this network. Not that funny, because they blocked me from logging in using G+ app and also using the browser directly.
Strange was that I still could send mails with googlemail from my cellphone.

Back at home in Germany, I could log in directly and a message was presented, asking me if I would like to get access to my stuff also from the Mexican WIFI network. I followed the wizard until it said that I should log in again from there within the next 10 minutes... funny :(

So my question is: how can I prevent this from happening again? I had carefully chosen a hotel with access to the Internet to be able to send some pictures home. Next time I would like to use my account exactly like I do it from home. As far as the authentication is concerned, they have the credentials (ID/PW) and surely an ID of the app directly. Why is there an additional check of the network I am using to connect to the Internet and how can I disable this?

Thanks in advance,
Ferdi
 
Any hotel wi-fi I've ever used requires one to use the browser and attempt to connect to any port 80 (http) web page. The request is intercepted by the proxy authenticator, where one would the enter the access code provided by the desk clerk, which would then allow normal Internet access for your device's unique MAC address.

Many proxy authenticators are poorly-administered, allowing one Internet access on other ports than 80 without authentication, such as 110 (pop), 143 (imap), 443 (ssl/https), pops, imaps, etc. I don't know what port is used by G+, but apparently multiple ports may be indicated.

The "rule of thumb" when using hotel wi-fi is to open a browser on the phone and connect to any page such as google.com, respond to the proxy challenge successfully, then full Internet access should be enabled for all apps.
 
Hi and thanks for answering. You are totally right that there was a proxy involved and you had to visit a website before you've got access to the web at all.

But this is what I did. I had access to the net, after I visited this special proxy website. I could check my mails, I could visit the news pages I wanted. But I wasn't able to login into my google-account. Neighter with my apps, nor directly using the browser. There were some google pages providing help in this case, but the last step was always to login to do something...and this wasn't possible. Exactly the same was happening using the phone and account of my wife.

If the app is using a special port, I would understand the problem. But the browser was surely using port 80 and was also blocked :(
 
You could look into using a VPN, that should bypass any hotel blocking, proxies or censoring. I often use a VPN because I'm in China, otherwise G+ and most other Google services are inaccessible.
 
Thanks for answering. :-)

Meanwhile I have a NAS with a VPN Server and it works fine so far. I tried it from home and also from another country while visiting friends. But from my place and also from Switzerland, it works as well fine without the VPN.

So this is why I cannot say, this solves my problem. I just had it in Mexico and nowhere else and wanted to make sure that it will not happen again, once I'll be back on vacations in the Caribbean.
 
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