> Most, yes.  But I've seen several hotels where you can have literally
> any IP address, and you can get on the internet.  They do have a DHCP
> server that'll assign you an IP within a private range, but if you
> have a static IP configuration that also works as well.

> I glanced at the instructions after I was using it (on DHCP 192.168.
> net) for a while and saw that they claimed it would work with any
> static IP setup.  So for the hell of it (really curious if it'd
> actually work that way), I changed my IP to 1.2.3.4/24 with gateway
> 1.2.3.1 and some oddball DNS server.  Worked with that.  Now I wish I
> had messed with it more, and sniffed the line to see what it was
> doing, but I had actual work to do at the time.  Next time I run
> across a setup like that I'll mess with it more.

It is exactly the system that I wish set up in Burgundy University in France.

> However I know there are many commercial hotspot providers that somehow make
this work.

As Chris Buechler said, there are commercials hotspot providers that allows
configuration transparence. When students come on campus, they change NOTHING
in their configuration (I repeat "NOTHING"). And when they launch their browser
(IE, Firefox,...), the authentication page appears.
This solution gives to users and data processing department much facilities.

It is why, I wish try with m0n0wall to set up this.
Burgundy University want to go in the direction of a open source solution.
m0n0wall will be the product that appears very interesting for us.

Chris Buechler think that proxy ARP is the beginning, I think too because I know
that this commercial system is based on ARP requests.

So, I wish to work with m0n0wall community and Manuel Kasper (obviously)
to realize this system in m0n0wall open source project (with last or future
version).
For that, I need your help.

That can be only beneficial for you and us.