For various reasons, a wide variety of otherwise free wifi hotspots require you to go through a login screen. (This is also common of course with for-pay hotspots where you must enter an account or room number.)

These login screens sometimes exist to control how many people access the hotspot. Sometimes they are just there to make sure the user knows who is providing the hotspot so as to be thankful. Often they are there to get you to click agreement to a set of terms and conditions for use (which most people just ignore but click on anyway.) Whatever reason they are there, they create problems. For example, they block non-browser oriented devices, like wifi phones, from using the hotspots. They also interfere with non-browser applications that want to use the network before the user has gone through the procedure with the browser.

Since we're not going to make them go away, can we improve things? There have been suggestions in the past for standardizing the login protocols, so that devices like wifi phones can still get in, as long as there is no typing or little typing. One could even standardize delivery of a short message or logo from the hotspot provider so you know who has provided the free service. Clicking agreement to terms remains a problem on such issues. I don't know how far those efforts have gotten, but I hope they do well.

Until then however, it might make sense to build a giant database of hotspots along with information on how to log into them. In most cases it involves doing a web fetch and then posting a form with a box checked and possibly some text in a box. There are really only so many different classes of login system. The database could map from SSIDs (for non-default SSIDs) or even MAC addresses. Laptops could easily store a large MAC based database, while phones and PDAs would have more trouble. However there are techniques, using hash tables and bitmaps designed for spell checking, which can compress these tables, since false hits on unknowns are not a problem.

Better still would be a way to "fingerprint" the login pages, since again there are only so many basic types. Then just store a set of scripts to calculate the fingerprints and scripts to fill out the forms.

When a laptop user -- anywhere -- using this system encountered a hotspot whose login page did not match any fingerprint (or which matched but failed to login) the software could capture the attempted session and fire off an E-mail (to be sent later, when connected) to the people maintaining the scripts. This team, perhaps paid, perhaps volunteer, could quickly develop scripts so that the next person to use that hotspot gets automatic login. Of course this doesn't help at a new conference hotspot where all the conference goers can't update their lists until they get on, but that's only the first time.

Now one problem is that these scripts would automate the checking of "I agree to the terms" buttons. And that does raise some interesting issues. First, over whether the user truly agreed. Next, over whether the script provider is liable for violations. And third, whether the hotspot owners will feel the need to make their login unscriptable (for example using CAPTCHAs or worse) to prevent people doing auto-logon. I mean they tried to make it hard to log on for some reason, we suppose.

Standardization would help here. Perhaps somebody could draw up a contract with the basic terms found in almost all these terms of service (no spam, prohibitions on various illegal uses) and users could agree to that (on behalf of all hotspots) and they would be satisfied. The scripts could be programmed to be able to extract the terms and offer the user the chance to see them. On a wifi phone, the phone could extract the terms and E-mail them to the phone's owner (the phone would be configured with that E-mail) over SMTP over TLS (don't want to reveal the E-mail address to sniffers) so the user has a copy and can at least review them later.

Of course, not having hotspot owners afraid of liability would be nice, too.