Please wait...
Obviously, all of this comes to a screeching halt the moment you remove their equipment from the wire and install your own.
Most of the unwashed masses, wont even know that is an option.
Obviously, all of this comes to a screeching halt the moment you remove their equipment from the wire and install your own.
Wont get into details and its work related, but stupid stuff my ISP does, is why i am pretty much forced to use a VPN.
The beach house we rented for the week has not only wifi, but also IPv6!
Happy nerd day!
Will leave the religion/politics of this for another room and another time...
Heard the Taliban cut off all internet access in Afghanistan this week. Cut the fiber, cut phone lines, jamming TV, radio, satellite signals. "Internet is 'evil' so you don't get it." I guess business are going to collapse as well, no way to do payments, order stuff. Im sure not a lot of "modern" business out there in that hell hole ( and who has a 'regular' job, or money? ) but heard there are a few.
Maybe that's a sign of hope for the western world -- that the way those people want to rule the world is incompatible with civilization.
2025-10-03 03:27 from IGnatius T Foobar
Maybe that's a sign of hope for the western world -- that the
way those people want to rule the world is incompatible with
civilization.
We have a saying in my country. Rough translation is "You don't learn from the punishment other people take".
It would seem people is clever enough to connect certain dots, right? If you see somebody do a thing that causes bad stuff to happen to him, it should get you thinking, right? Well, experience shows that is not the case. You only learn the thing is bad when it screws you. Sometimes, not even then.
After realizing that it's been two years since I "cut the cord" and prompted by a flyer from The Cable Company claiming that now "they" have fiber too, it was time to call Verizon and get my deal sweetened again.
I will be getting the same 1 Gbps fiber service, a lower per-month cost, and *finally* rid of the landline service I don't want or need. Plus they're sending me a $200 gift card for re-upping.
Now I can finally get rid of those damn cordless phones that the family insists on keeping around.
Remind me to tell you about Google Fiber moving into my area, the door to door salesman being a hard push ahole. So a long time ago I wrote an article for Tech Republic where I took an ASUS tablet into my work and because I had logged in onto my corporate WiFi before on a Droid 1 and 2, the ASUS instantly found the Wifi and knew the WiFi password and connected and started downloading updates - before I gave any OK to go ahead. The story made it to Germany overnight, got translated... and then David Horowitz picked it up on ZDNet Threat Assessment about 6 months later when the Feds hacked Google's network and basically - if your Android device had connected on a corporate network, the Feds had the WiFi password - and the same for your home hotspot. It was pretty big. The Google Fiber guy was like, "That is old news, the FCC passed a law where they have to know your password." I told him that was a lie, he made fun of Horowitz and it was just... annoying. "You sell Google fiber door to door - I'm ACTUALLY a pretty accomplished IT security professional. I'm not Phoneboy from Checkpoint 1 - but I know him personally. As a friend."
This is where my career is - being dismissed by Google fiber door to door salesmen and being lied to about FCC laws about WiFi passwords. I think the Large Hadron Collider caused a black hole that consumed the earth and we're on an alternate timeline.
To get on my wifi network you'd have to drive almost all the way to the end of my 250ft driveway to get close enough to the house. And if you need Internet that badly ... I'd probably see you there and invite you in to have a cup of coffee and enjoy a good signal inside.
But yes, if you give an android device a wifi password you're giving it to Google, and by extension the US and China governments get it too. I think we all know by now that such devices are not trustworthy in that sense.
Sure. But there is no FCC law that requires you to reveal your WiFi password to the federal government.
Just for the record, my home WiFi is ClintonEmailServer
And my Starlink is ClintonEmalServerBlackVan
If you ever need the password, just IM me. It is hilarious. Ask anyone who knows it. I'm a jackass. :)
I love broadcasting provocative SSIDs and Bluetooth device names, especially in a place where I can pretend I'm them (think "Starbucks Employees For xxx" [thankfully I don't go to Starbucks except under duress]).
ProTip: don't use "bomb" or "detonator" on an airplane. You *will* be arrested, no matter how funny it is.
Well, mine is insulting AF - so... they have to type it in with shame, anyhow. Might as well make them regret it.
But yes, if you give an android device a wifi password you're giving it to Google, and by extension the US and China governments get it too. I think we all know by now that such devices are not trustworthy in that sense.
I like that. Gotta mess with people, right?
A few weeks ago I was in an airport and couldn't get the wifi working so I launched a hotspot called "Starbucks Free Wifi" with no password and a connection limit of 1 client (which I immediately consumed). It was fun to listen to the alert beeps every time some poor sod tried to connect to it and got rejected.
It was even more fun because there wasn't a Starbucks anywhere in the terminal. In fact, there was a different brand coffee shop right there so it should have been clear that there wasn't going to be a Starbucks Free Wifi.
Now I do love my suburban raised ranch on a full acre of land, and the fact that I'm basically on a wifi island. But if I ever lived "in town" I'd love to have an apartment directly over a real Starbucks. I would put a ceiling access point on the floor, offer a network with the same name as whatever SSID the Starbucks was using, maybe even clone their MAC address, and just mess with people's heads all day long. Maybe serve up pr0n sites when they asked for Instagram. Maybe insert hidden messages into their web pages. I'd have a welcome page with the Starbucks logo that made their browser accept my SSL certificate for "*.com" when they clicked to accept.
After all, if they came to Starbucks in the first place, they have an appetite for bitter, and that's what we'd serve up, hot and fresh all day.
My phone will try to automatically reconnect to a name its used before. Perhaps its just that?
I like that. Gotta mess with people, right?
A few weeks ago I was in an airport and couldn't get the wifi working so I launched a hotspot called "Starbucks Free Wifi" with no password and a connection limit of 1 client (which I immediately consumed). It was fun to listen to the alert beeps every time some poor sod tried to connect to it and got rejected.