Our local fast food chain restaurant (there is only one) has recently started using something from Fortinet to handle their wifi. When they began doing so, their wifi immediately became very slow.

It was really slow tonight and so I started wondering why. I already knew that the IP address assigned by their DHCP server was for a site in Thailand. I had assumed that some imbecile had just assigned a Thailand block of IP addresses to their NAT device.

It appears that they are actually routing all their wifi traffic through Thailand and Beijing! I wonder if they are routing their other traffic through there as well, for example credit card transaction processing.

How trustworthy is Fortinet?

I demoed a few of their products looking for a specific solution about a year ago. The sales guys were nice and tech support was decent. Met with some engineer types as well. They all seemed very professional to me.

All my contact was with people from the Denver area.

Their product was nice, too. Worked mostly as they said it would. I did not end up purchasing their hardware though.

Fortinet is a good secure brand.

Depending on how they configured it, it may have a Captive Portal for Guest WiFi. I'm assuming

1. A 3rd party company build the landing pages/proxy and all traffic is going through Thailand
2. They have a VPN setup for some reason.

Sling Blade said:

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Fortinet is a good secure brand.

Depending on how they configured it, it may have a Captive Portal for Guest WiFi. I'm assuming

1. A 3rd party company build the landing pages/proxy and all traffic is going through Thailand
2. They have a VPN setup for some reason.

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When you initially connect to their wifi, you have to use your web browser to display a Fortinet splash screen and agree to its terms. At that point it takes you to a survey about your meal (which is all kinds of stupid since they are asking questions that you can't legitimately answer until you have eaten and left), but you can close that survey and go to what you wish at that point.

It caught me by surprise the first few times because my first action upon starting my laptop is nearly always to connect to my main computer at the office via ssh. Since it wouldn't let me connect until I had clicked the "I agree" button on their Fortinet screen, I would sit there for a couple of minutes wondering why it was so slow before I would remember how screwed up their wifi is now.

My main reason for going to Dairy Queen is that I can take my laptop and either work or read while I'm there. If I don't trust their wifi, I don't see any reason for me to go back unless I get the food to go. If I'm going to take the food back to the office, I can easily go to the taco truck across the street from the Dairy Queen.