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
    12·
    8 months ago

    The proof is in the money trail. If the library’s funding traces to a tax-funded government, it is a public service that encompasses all services offered by that institution. It’s also in state or national law that legislates for libraries to exist, which differs from one state to another.

    If you want to find a clause that says “only people with wifi hardware may access the internet, and only if they have a mobile phone”, I suspect you’ll have a hard time finding that. At best, I could imagine you might find a sloppily written law that says “libraries shall offer wifi” without specifying the exclusion of others. But if you could hypothetically find that, it would merely be an indication of a national or state law that contradicts that country’s signature on the UDHR. So it’s really a pointless exercise.

    • null@slrpnk.netEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      So quote the specifics of what was funded as is relevant to your case.

      Again, if they don’t run that line to my house, are they violating my human rights? Or are there boundaries around what defines the service?

      • coffeeClean@infosec.pubOPEnglish
        13·
        8 months ago

        Calm down. It’s a new comment that just came in so of course I’m going to edit it a few times in the span of the first minute or two as I compose my answer. If you wait five or ten minutes you’ll get a more finished answer.

        • null@slrpnk.netEnglish
          21·
          8 months ago

          Lol no, you edited it multiple times over the course of 7 minutes, radically changing the context of what I had already replied to.

          That’s not the same as tweaking a few things within a minute or 2.

          Edit: suddenly its 10 minutes? Why not just retcon your entire post? At least have the courtesy to note significant edits when you’ve already gotten a reply

          • coffeeClean@infosec.pubOPEnglish
            13·
            8 months ago

            My client says it was created at 21:24:02 GMT and modified at 21:25:12. Instead of using a stopwatch which you somehow screwed up, just mouse over the time. The popup will show you a span of 1 minute and 10 seconds.

            (edit) strange; after I refresh the screen the /create/ timestamp changed. Surely that’s a bug in Lemmy. The creation timestamp should never change. nvm… just realized I was looking at the wrong msg.

            • null@slrpnk.netEnglish
              31·
              8 months ago

              Posted 24 minutes ago, edited 15 minutes ago.

              I refreshed and watched you edit multiple times over that period.

              Stop lying.

              • coffeeClean@infosec.pubOPEnglish
                12·
                8 months ago

                Stop lying.

                I said “wait five or ten minutes”. I’m seeing a 9m1s span. I don’t really feel compelled to be more accommodating than that. Maybe you can write to Jerry and ask to configure it so edits are blocked after 1 minute if it really bothers you. Otherwise if you don’t like the policy of the node, you are free to leave.

                • null@slrpnk.netEnglish
                  31·
                  8 months ago

                  You edited in the “wait five or ten minutes” after I had already replied.

                  Edit: You’ll note that I indicated that change with my own, clearly indicated edit. You know, common courtesy.

                  Edit: and you STILL haven’t replied to my initial response.

                  • coffeeClean@infosec.pubOPEnglish
                    12·
                    8 months ago

                    You edited in the “wait five or ten minutes” after I had already replied.

                    I know five min was in the original version. Not sure if I added the ten but certainly it was not after you posted this. You are seriously paranoid and should get help for that.

    • null@slrpnk.netEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      Still waiting on an answer that’s not just about evidence you couldn’t find and feel would be pointless, and for you to actually prove your bold, human rights violation claim…

    • null@slrpnk.netEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      So quote the specifics of what was funded as is relevant to your case.

      Again, if they don’t run that line to my house, are they violating my human rights? Or are there boundaries around what defines the service?