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Get Facebook WiFi for your business

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Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#261

Post by guloizo »

mseebach wrote: post #13

This is a pretty good idea. It solves the coordination problem of not wanting to just provide free wifi forever to anyone by requiring a token "payment". It solves the identification problem which (unfortunately) is a requirement in many jurisdictions. And it helps non-technical business owners provide decent wifi.

No it's not. It's the same as answering your business phone by saying "go fuck yourself" and hanging up 1 out of 10 times.

Besides it doesn't solve the identification problem at all, as in lent credentials, fake accounts, hacked accounts and things of this ilk. It turns facebook acounts in commodities to be traded to access the internet.

An the worst part is that it's an attack on the very foundations of the Internet.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#262

Post by guloizo »

mbillie1 wrote: post #37
zuckerfap wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing decent about WiFi that links your customers to the creepiest personal info vacuum on earth.

Meh. Just filter what you put on Facebook, or don't use it. I'm not in favor of this, and I do find it creepy, but nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you log in and post status updates recapping your day. It's a trade off - the pleasure/whatever you get from FB vs the creepiness/unpleasantness from them having your information. If the balance tips, re-evaluate using the service.

Filtering what you put on facebook will not protect you and not using it will not prevent facebook from profiling you but will prevent you from accessing "free" internet from this places.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#263

Post by guloizo »

hrrsn wrote: post #91
swasheck wrote: post #8

> Customers simply check in to your location on Facebook to connect to free Wi-Fi wow. not only do they get you to sign up for an account, they also get more insight into your movements/migrations by forcing you to use a feature that (for now) you can disable. nobody says you have to use the service but we'll see how many more sell out for it. edit: read more How do I edit the Wi-Fi code my customers use to skip chec…

If you don't like it, don't buy a Facebook WiFi router. For our business use case, this is perfect.

There's no business case where telling a portion of customers or would be customers to go fuck themselves and kicking them out.

Having a facebook only "free" internet is doing just that.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#264

Post by guloizo »

jasonlfunk wrote: post #21
sergiotapia wrote: post #14

Absolutely disgusting. These type of things just give me the willies. Everyday I see that Mr. Stallman was right, it's incredible!

Why is this "absolutely disgusting"? It's good for Facebook, it's good for local businesses, and it completely optional for consumers. I don't see any problem here.

As a rule of thumb, what's good for facebook is bad for everybody else. A transnational corporation whose business is surveillance and data gathering planting devices in local businesses replacing wifi internet access by "you don't get to use the internet if you don't submit to our corporate surveillance" is not good news. Telling a portion of your customers to go fuck themselves is not good for businesses and this is what such facebook routers are doing. Replace facebook by NSA here and say again you don't see a problem here.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#265

Post by rsynnott »

scotty79 wrote: post #219
code_duck wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was that exchange with the clerk 'being a jerk'?

Apparently nowadays it's being a jerk to ask people questions you should have guessed they have no way to answer productively.

Erm, yes, it really kind of is.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#266

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

interpol_p wrote: post #255
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one has to distinguish between no privacy and privacy controlled by some central entity, though. If essentially everyone knows everything about everyone, that might work (though I have some doubts how one could get there from here, especially as it would need some fundamental changes in our economic system), but having the control concentrated in one place seems to me to be very risky indeed, as that is a hug…

Is it power? What does it allow one to do? If the average person in the population simply does not care if their private details are exposed, transferred, or looked at, then does the person who holds those details hold power over anyone? Again, I generally think having some privacy is a good thing, and personally do not use my Facebook or other social accounts outside of a professional context. But sometimes I wonder…

Yes, it is power, tons of it, in a wide variety of forms.

That someone doesn't care has little effect on how others can use the information - the only power that that removes is the power to embarrass. Any party that you depend on economically can still use the information to their advantage (and your disadvantage). And mind you that that might not only be for irrational reasons - any statistically significant correlation is a perfectly rational reason for some company to refuse you as a customer or to increase prices for you, for example. In securities markets, there even is a name for using private information about planned transactions to gain an advantage, it's called front running, and it's illegal, because it is considered to be essentially stealing the customer's money.

But also, much of the power is not power over individuals, but power over society as a whole, in that such direct access to inter-human communication allows you to find patterns in social dynamics and thus allows you to predict future actions, and what it would need to change the outcome. In essence, that is what marketing is all about - but of course, its applicability is not limited to selling you washing powder, but it can also be used to "sell" political ideas. And in the case of Facebook, they can directly manipulate what people get to see, of course.

And then, there is the intersection between the two, in that there are some people who themselves have more power than others, possibly over you - and if someone gains some power over them directly, that means they might transitively also be gaining power over you.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#267

Post by tripzilch »

interpol_p wrote: post #247
sbt wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it surprising that in a country that finds national IDs liberticide the problem of identifying people is being outsourced to a corporate monopoly? This was the core of the problem during all the Snowden leaks last year; A fraction of the population recognized how serious it was, but for the vast majority it just didn't compute. This terrifies me and I fear that we may have to see an entire generation before s…

But what if the vast majority of the population is right ? What if there are no detrimental long term effects to our society when our digital privacy is compromised? What if the majority of the population ignoring the risks and simply being productive in the areas they work best is the best thing for society? I'm not arguing this point of view, but I think risks are often be exaggerated by the security conscious.

> But what if the vast majority of the population is right?

Honestly what would be the odds of that?

The track record of the vast majority of the population isn't exactly stellar. We tend to be concerned about whatever some smaller minority tells us to be.

(Note that I say "we". We are not immune: Just look at the amount of strictly incompatible opposing viewpoints on HN. At least half of those must be wrong for each viewpoint, making the aggregate of even this collection of relatively smart people, dumber than a sack of bricks. Okay, maybe two sacks of bricks)

So what then? My point is, it's much better to base your assumptions and viewpoints on the particular merits and flaws of an idea, than on whether or not the majority of the population agrees with it.

It's just not relevant. Not at all. The only relevance might be how to steer the majority public opinion, if you want to affect change. A very wise man once said: THINK FOR YOURSELF, SCHMUCK!

My personal view is that the "security conscious" (which includes myself, to some extent, I guess) is in possession of a lot more facts than the majority of the public. Also their track record is pretty good. Especially since the Snowden revelations, nearly all of the things that used to dismissed to tinfoil territory turned out to be exactly right. Even RMS' "wacky paranoia" turned out to be not so crazy after all.

Heh, even the "tinfoil hat" itself turned out to be useful, in a sense: wrapping your phone in tinfoil prevents you being tracked (and it's easier than removing the batteries). At least this works perfectly for GSM signals (just try calling a phone wrapped in tinfoil), haven't tried with Wifi or Bluetooth.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#268

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

diminoten wrote: post #260
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the social contract includes not snooping in other people's private lives, and not co-opting unsuspecting third parties for doing so.

So they have to give you free WiFi with no strings, stipulations, or benefit to them? You're free to not get on the WiFi if you don't want to, and frankly if you're hopping on any public WiFi, you've more or less lost any practical claim to privacy in the first place.

That might be your opinion, but I think you are wrong. And not only that, but where I live you would even be legally wrong. If you open your access point for public use here and you then go and look at other people's traffic, that is illegal and you can go to jail for it.

And no, they don't have to give me free WiFi - they just have to not snoop on me. Just try to transfer your argument to a scenario that doesn't involve WiFi or facebook, but rather, say, tap water and as a prerequisite you have to confess belief in Allah. Illegal? Certainly not. Totally inappropriate? I would say so.

You see, this is not a legal argument, it's about ethics, about what makes a society worthwhile to live in, not about what the minimal standards are that we enforce using state power.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#269

Post by poorelise »

ihsw wrote: post #2

And so Facebook encroaches upon the physical world to anchor itself -- storefront businesses will come to rely on Facebook to sell personalized ads. I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook gets to access data about who purchases what and when. If you don't think Google will be doing the same thing with LTE-enabled cars, think again. Their partnership with automakers is no small challenge, and the data gathering opportuni…

"Honda could use this information and market the Civic as "the best" car for eating at McDonald's."

There might be a horror scenario in there somewhere, but this isn't it :-)

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#270

Post by mercer »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #222
madeofpalk wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's a strawman argument if I've ever seen one

As you don't seem to know what a strawman argument is, let me explain: A strawman argument is when you misrepresent the position of your opponent in order to have something that is easier to argue against so as to avoid addressing your opponent's arguments. Arguing against a strawman is fallacious because of the misrepresentation: Your arguments only invalidate the strawman position, not the position of your opponent…

It is a stawman argument, precisely because it's not a good analogy; instead it's basically an example of Godwin's Law.

The reason why your 'analogy' isn't really such is that setting up a facebook account with just your name, which is all you'd have to do, is nowhere close in severity to willingly following a dictator. It's not analogous.

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