Most WiFi broken??

[VirginSnow at vfemail.net]

Hello,

I'm having trouble accessing lots of public WiFi, and am hoping someone
here could help.  I'm using a WPC54G Linksys G CardBus (32-bit PCMCIA)
card on a laptop running Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS.  The problem I'm having is
that I cannot associate with most access points.  iwconfig reports "not
associated".  With some access points, it will associate briefly, once,
but then never again.  At the same accesspoints, other people (using
their stupidphone, iWhatevers, etc.) are able to "connect", get a
login/AUP page, and proceed to the Web without any apparent difficulty.

Yes, I know that public so-called "WiFi" hotspots play games with DNS
and break just about every RFC imaginable in just about every way
imaginable, but I know that this isn't a DNS problem.  With most access
points, I can't even associate, let alone pull an IP address.

But here's the odd part: this same exact setup works fine with some
other public WiFi (I'd guess about 1 in 5), and works just fine with
every access point that I've set up myself (usually OpenWRT on Linksys
WRT-series routers).  Silly me... following standards and all.

So, I'm wondering.  Has somebody come up with a new "un standard" that
is being used for these access points?  Could it be possbile that all
these iPeople could be pulling IPs, using DNS, and surfing the Web all
without ever associating with the AP?

Any help with this nind-mumbing problem would be much appreciated...

Thanks!