Wifi redirection portals

["Russ Dill" <russ dill gmail com>]

Clearly a complex problem with no simple solution. It sucks that
PPP/dialup/etc autentication problems are now in the past, completely,
automated etc, and now we must start all over again.

There is no simple, non-intrusive way for network manager to know that
a network needs some form of authentication. But I'm thinking, maybe
some daemon could be running that could detect that a
redirection/authentication step had taken place. Once that occurs, it
could be associated that the network requires a
redirection/authentication step. When network manager connects to that
network again, it would then be able to popup a browser window upon
connection, allowing the user to authenticate, once the user closes
the authentication window, network manager could assume that it really
is connected.

The problem that I have is that I'll gave gmail windows open and when
firefox detects a connection through network manager, gmail will try
to start talking to the server again, but the SSL certificates don't
match, so I keep getting error messages. Its really difficult to click
past them fast enough.