• Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    I went to a restaurant recently that asked me to pay my bill with the QR code on the tablet. Scanned it, and the first thing it did was ask for my phone number to verify my “account” by sending me a code.

    The server didn’t understand that I wasn’t going to do that, and they needed to run my credit card like normal or I wasn’t paying.

        • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I talked my way out of a parking ticket once. the machines were offline, and the only sticker for the app was knee level on the side. I argued a smart phone should not be a requirement to park your car here, meter cop tore the ticket up right then.

    • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      That’s why in some ways I don’t mind that my country still pays for mobile data, because I just don’t even bother at restaurants anymore “oh, I’ve run out of data, I can’t scan that, here’s my money”

      Because of how severely covid lock downs hit our state, every single restaurant I’ve been to in the last 5 years has used a QR code to order and pay.

      I have allergies, so this means I mostly just order black coffee when it’s QR only.

      I’m not giving you all of my personal details for an overpriced $5 black coffee. The result is that I sit there with my friends, fiddling my thumbs, not buying anything.

  • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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    1 month ago

    I’m often admin@websiteimsigning.into with a name of admin admin, a birth date of 01/01/1970 a phone number of 4041234567 and address of 123 main street anytown, USA

    And then if they expect me to retrieve info from said email or phone number I simply move on

  • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Bro, just one more piece of info bro. Come on bro, just one more piece of your personal info and I’ll let you sign on to the “free” wifi. Bro come on bro, just one more piece of personal info, it’s no big deal for some wifi bro.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Rule of thumb on the Internet, if you can’t see how it’s payed for (subscriptions, ads, donations…) then you probably pay with your personal data.

    Especially true for apps and games. “Play totally free, no annoying adds or in-app purchases” means “Here is a trojan horse pretending to be a game while farming every possible information from your device to sell to the highest bidder”.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Small shout out to Apple here, perhaps, for their little privacy report card. Here is Angry Birds 2:

      A transcription app by a cool solo dev:

      Y’all trust these?

      • LostXOR@fedia.io
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        1 month ago

        As I understand it Apple is fairly good privacy-wise (at least compared to others). I wouldn’t 100% trust those cards, but I’m guessing they’re pretty accurate.

    • MattMatt@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      They don’t care. They’re just turning around and repeating your lies to whatever advertiser is so stupid as to believe their demographic sales pitch.

      Hurt them by not using it. That’s the biggest number that feeds their machine.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        There’s something to be said for poisoning the data. Intentionally, and consistently, enter slightly wrong information into every form you can. If it leaks, it all corroborates, but with other wrong information.

        It’s definitely easier and more reliable to just pass tho.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      This is what I do.

      Today I signed into some “free” wifi as Joe mama (Joe@mama.tech)

      Smooth sailing for Joe after that.

      • oldfart@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        But the trick with these is, in order to check email they need to connect you to the internet, even if just for a minute. If you just need the internet to sync the latest IMs and emails, that is good enough.

  • JohnyRocket@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 month ago

    Here’s a secret those free wifi providers don’t want you to know: usually, they don’t check your email or ask you to verify it, so you can just enter suckurmomsball@gmail.com If they do show a second screen asking for an email, just create a tempmail adress on cellular and switch back to verify. It works 99.99% of the time.

    Edit: you also don’t have to enter any real personal information, how would they know?

    • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I always use famous people, just in case someone is checking the data and assumes that Tom Cruise or Sydney Sweeney decided to stop in Cambridge for a quick bite to eat in Nandos before staying in the Travelodge.

  • duckduckohno@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I’ve never given a real email to these. I just bash the keys on my phones with random letters and decide whether it’s going to be gmail, aol, or yahoo that day…

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    1 month ago

    Oh, it’s not a swindle. What you do is, see, you give 'em all your credit card numbers, and if one of them is lucky, they’ll send you a prize!

  • michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 month ago

    On some public networks, my Wireguard VPN just doesn’t work. Although I can connect to my server using SSH, so I assume the network was configured to block certain ports or how else can it block VPN connections?

    • itslilith
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      1 month ago

      Many networks block UDP ports, which is what wireguard uses. If you can configure the serverside part of the VPN, you could try running it on port 123, which is used for the network time protocol (ntp), which also uses UDP and is open nearly everywhere

  • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Bro, look, there’s an open wifi network here now. Signal kinda sucks out here. Imma try it.

    …it’s loading a login screen

    they want my employee number

    close it and never think about using it again

  • AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    You can save different identities using one password and then every time you sit down at your computer you can just make up new details for those identities in one password so that when you go to the mall, You’re not always Chungus McGrungledunk, but sometimes they’re going to be offering a free trial to, Faurtstick Blastschish or whatever name I give the email address I spin up for the purpose.

    It’s good to register a burner domain that you don’t care about and once you have the processed enough different identities through it simply stop renewing it and sign up for new one.