I plugged into ethernet (as wifi w/captive portal does not work for me). I think clearnet worked but I have no interest in that. Egress Tor traffic was blocked and so was VPN. I’m not interested in editing all my scripts and configs to use clearnet, so the library’s internet is useless to me (unless I bother to try a tor bridge).

I was packing my laptop and a librarian spotted me unplugging my ethernet cable and approached me with big wide open eyes and pannicked angry voice (as if to be addressing a child that did something naughty), and said “you can’t do that!”

I have a lot of reasons for favoring ethernet, like not carrying a mobile phone that can facilitate the SMS verify that the library’s captive portal imposes, not to mention I’m not eager to share my mobile number willy nilly. The reason I actually gave her was that that I run a free software based system and the wifi drivers or firmware are proprietary so my wifi card doesn’t work¹. She was also worried that I was stealing an ethernet cable and I had to explain that I carry an ethernet cable with me, which she struggled to believe for a moment. When I said it didn’t work, she was like “good, I’m not surprised”, or something like that.

¹ In reality, I have whatever proprietary garbage my wifi NIC needs, but have a principled objection to a service financed by public money forcing people to install and execute proprietary non-free software on their own hardware. But there’s little hope for getting through to a librarian in the situation at hand, whereby I might as well have been caught disassembling their PCs.

  • coffeeClean@infosec.pubOPEnglish
    4·
    7 months ago

    Someone should let the IT staff know so they can properly block those services on ethernet as well.

    Someone should let the IT staff know that wi-fi does not work for everyone, including:

    • People running a free software platform that lacks support for a wifi NIC that needs a proprietary driver and firmware
    • People running free software who ethically object to running the proprietary non-free driver and firmware their wifi NIC requires
    • People without a mobile phone to perform the captive portal-mandated SMS verfication
    • People with a mobile phone but who want to exercise their GDPR right to data minimization
    • Climate activists who prefer not to spend 30 times more energy needed for wi-fi radios
    • People who want the security of other wi-fi users not eavesdropping on their traffic by simply pointing a yagi antenna from a block away (on a network that blocks the VPNs that would protect them from that on wi-fi)

    (edit)

    • People who cannot get past the captive portal for other reasons, such as the captive portal imposing TLS 1.3 on older software (forced obsolescence), or anything else that fails technically, like DNS breakage preventing the captive portal’s hostname from resolving.

    And because simply turning on Wi-Fi in public enables all iPhones in your range to automatically snoop, collect your wi-fi params including SSIDs your device looks for before sending it to Apple, along with GPS fix and timestamp (according to research), there are people who:

    • for privacy reasons object to being snooped on generally in this way
    • boycott Apple already for any number of reasons, and who have enough discipline and resolve to oppose feeding profitable data to Apple – regardless of whether they actually care about the disclosure.
    • boycott the fossil fuel industry, including Google who supplies AI to Totaal Oil to find drilling locations, and thus oppose feeding Google by way of Androids in range doing the same collection as Apple. (note it’s disputed whether Google actually mirrors Apple on this to the extent of Apple)
    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      23·
      7 months ago

      You’re welcome to use the library PCs (if available) or get your own ISP connection.

    • DoomBot5@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, this argument is bullshit once you actually know what you’re talking about instead of following some cult videos that teach you to repeat them.