So I travelled home to my home town Västerås by train today, and I figured something out.
The Swedish Express-class trains (the type I travelled in) called X2000 are equipped with both electric 230V outlets and wireless internet. The electricity is free, but the wireless internet costs several Swedish Kronor per hour if you are a poor student that only travels on second class tickets like me. You are using your laptop but feeling handicapped without internet, or just have to check your e-mail right now. So what to do?

There is a way I found to get an internet connection for free! I am not going to show you how to crack the login system, or do a heavy-duty crack. If you expected that, go back to your parent’s house and stick to Counter-Strike or some other trivial way to spend your time. Besides, that would be too obvious and might draw the attendants’ attention to you (and it is illegal!).
Before continuing, I also want to issue this disclaimer: I do not take any responsibility for anything that happens to you by doing this. If anybody finds out what you are doing, you might lose your ticket, be dropped off at the next station, be charged a heavy fine, or even charged in court. This method is written here for educational purposes and the joy of breaking a system only, and I do not encourage anybody to commit a crime.

So if the main entrance (cracking the login system) is the wrong way we just take the back door! In this case the one big weak point in the system is quite discreet and simple, but it requires that you get up from your seat and walk! Oh, no! The nightmare for a geek!

Don’t bring your laptop, you are just out on an intelligence mission for now. Head over all the way to the first class section of the train (probably the frontmost couch) and sneak in. I think that you not are allowed to enter the first-class section with a second-class tickets, so
you will need good timing and you have to be smart. Here comes the plan: First-class passengers get an internet connection for free, and they log in with a code they have printed on their ticket. Swedish railway tickets are in the size of flight tickets, so they are
easy to spot if their owners let them lay around on their trays and tables. What you do is that you walk quite quickly to the very front of the train, pretending to be on your way to the front of the train just for the fun of it. The real thing, though, is that you are looking for
open train tickets laying around. When you reached the front of the train, stare out of the window for a few seconds, play that you get bored of it and start walking back, more slowly this time. Remember where you spotted open tickets and walk slowly past them while
discreetly peering on them to find out the code. One tip is that you pretend to lose your balance of the train rocking and stand still for one second just beside the victim.

The most difficult part of this hack is that you will have to memorize a thirteen-figure code containing letters and numbers, but if you are a geek like me you probably have no problems to quickly memorize long strings of nonsense text (IP addresses anyone?) The code is on the upper middle side of the ticket if you wondered. You have the same type of code on your second-class ticket if you want to practice reading and memorizing that one.

Now go back to your seat, rehearsing the code over and over again as you walk. Sit down at your laptop and write it up somewhere safe. That is your ticket for a free internet connection!
Of course you must not steal the ticket, even if it seems tempting. The art of trainleeching is to leave as little a trace as possible.

Configure your computer to use the wireless connection. The SSID is “SJ” and there is no encryption. Head to the web page http://www.sjinternetombord.se and enter the code. Press login!

If everything goes right, you are now presented with a happy message confirming that you have logged in and the internet is ready to use.

Happy surfing!

There is one catch, though. The code seems to be a one-time code only, so what probably happens when you use the code is that the person who really owns the code will not get their free internet connection. They might call the technical support, which in turn might check the logs, and find that the code has been used by a specific MAC address (an address unique to your network interface). This address ties the login to your specific computer! You therefore have to choose your “target” wisely. Of course there are ways to change a MAC address, but that is outside the scope of this guide.

So this was a proof-of-concept of trainleeching on the Swedish X2000 trains. Use this information wisely. This guide was written on board an X2000 and of course posted from a leeched internet connection!

For first-class passengers I have the following recommendation: Keep your ticket clear of curious bystanders and your code hidden.

And now my recommendation for SJ: Why don’t you open up your networks for everybody to use? You save support costs for a complex coded system, get more happy passengers, and even more people will choose to travel by train instead of by domestic airlines (which is becoming a more and more popular in Sweden)

Finally, a last word of advice: Have fun! If you like this article or want to give some feedback, write your comment below.