12-05-2025
A Chinese hotel's WiFi caused a man to break up with his girlfriend. Here's how
In a bizarre case of technology causing trouble in a relationship, a young woman in China was dumped by her boyfriend after her phone automatically connected to a hotel's WiFi - a place she claimed she had never visited woman, surnamed Li, had gone to a hotel in Chongqing with her boyfriend during the May Day checking in, Li realised that she had forgotten her physical ID, after which she tried to retrieve her digital identity card. That is when her phone instantly connected to the hotel's WiFi network, South China Morning Post reports, citing Chongqing
As Li's boyfriend noticed this, he became rather suspicious. How could her phone recognise a network at a hotel they were supposedly visiting for the first time together? When asked, Li insisted she had never been there before and had no idea why her phone connected on its own. Her explanation, however, didn't convince him, as a result of which he decided to end their over her boyfriend's behaviour, Li was determined to understand what had happened. As she dug deeper, she eventually figured out the reason. At one point of time, Li used to work in another hotel in Chongqing which offered WiFi with the same username and immediately contacted her ex-boyfriend to explain, but he had already blocked her. Hence, she reached out to Chongqing TV to publicly clarify what had happened - not to win him back but to clear her a Chongqing TV reporter visited both locations to verify Li's story. Their phone, once connected at Li's former workplace, also auto-connected at the hotel, thereby confirming her to Chongqing TV, cybersecurity expert Liu said that it's entirely possible for phones to connect to different networks sharing the same name and password, as the device assumes it's the same trusted Liu advised people to disable the auto-connect feature to avoid confusion and potential security Reel
