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Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

hotelwifitest.com

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Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#201

Post by jimmaswell »

konspence wrote: post #136
jimmaswell wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An external ethernet dongle is more likely to break or get lost. Wasn't there a push against dongles a while ago? Are they becoming normal again? There's no VGA port either which is a necessity for me. No CD drive either. Is this thing a laptop or a big smartphone with no touch screen? No numpad either, wow.

> An external ethernet dongle is more likely to break or get lost. Sure, but it's replaceable for the cheap cost of ~$10 - 20. > There's no VGA port either which is a necessity for me. 2007 called, they want their already-deprecated video standards back. > No CD drive either. 2000 called, they want their already-deprecated media storage standards back. >Is this thing a laptop or a big smartphone with no touch screen?…

>Sure, but it's replaceable for the cheap cost of ~$10 - 20.

Still inconvenient at least. USB Ethernet dongles also have the possibility of not being able to be used for network booting.

>2007 called, they want their already-deprecated video standards back.

Make it DVI or whatever you want then. I still need a video output for another monitor.

>2000 called, they want their already-deprecated media storage standards back.

I use the CD drive for things like DVDs or old PC games. Bluray disks are used now as well. Disks are not dead.

>Now I'm convinced you're trolling.

I like using the numpad so I must be a troll.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#202

Post by DanBC »

brownbat wrote: post #125
cynicalkane wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas it's obviously silly to suppose that gaining access to Wi-Fi is a criminal act worth worrying about, it's also worth pointing out courts reject arguments like this. In particular, in more serious legal matters, the fact that you admitted you understood the intent of the policy would be held against you. Courts simply don't buy into the idea that "if something is technically allowed, it's authorized", any more…

> courts reject arguments like this. If by "arguments like this," you mean following the law but with suspect motives, then one of the strengths of the legal system in the US is that the courts absolutely accept arguments like these. In criminal matters, you typically need both intent and some act forbidden by statute before a finding of guilt. You can't indict someone for ill will. Intent alone is not generally suff…

> In criminal matters, you typically need both intent and some act forbidden by statute before a finding of guilt. You can't indict someone for ill will.

Obtaining goods by deception seems to cover this. Especially with the public admission of "I siged on, and had to pay, but discovered that my colleague did not have to pay so I was deceptive about the equipment I used, and the only reason I was deceptive was to avoid the requirement to pay".

There is no element in the discussion about needing to change user agent for work or anything else.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#203

Post by DanBC »

wtallis wrote: post #115
DanBC wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good tip but is it sensible to admit to several criminal offences on a public forum?

Literally every browser out there sends a user agent that is in some way lying. Anyone trying to authenticate based on a user agent is a victim only of their own stupidity, not any sort of crime by their guests.

Yes, people who are relying on user agents are stupid.

That doesn't make it any less illegal to use the useragent to deceive someone about what equipment you're using purely to avoid paying a charge.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#204

Post by uncleruckus »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #117
cnst wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kinda depends on the company policy. I'm a systems software engineer; I've had a fly-in interview with Goldman Sachs in NYC in 2010 from grad school (I was cold-called by a third-party recruiter company through LinkedIn or something), Goldman has placed me in Embassy Suites next door to their office -- supposedly, they even own the whole hotel. The internet was 9,95, and I was explicitly told that they won't pay…

You could panhandle for ten the bucks. OTOH, no company that expects a person to read or send an email, or do any other internet-ish thing can expect their employees to subsidize their business while on a business trip.

My company pays for me to have tethering on my iPhone so I not really supposed to also expense internet at a hotel. Of course this is fine for doing work stuff like email, but when you're in a hotel for 4 days it's nice to have Netflix, which obviously is not ideal on a tethered cell connection.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#205

Post by DanBC »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #109
DanBC wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good tip but is it sensible to admit to several criminal offences on a public forum?

IANL, but that probably isn't illegal.

A hotel says "free wifi for Ape devices. Everyone else has to pay". A hotel guess decides to misprepresen. What device they have. The only reason they misrepresent their device is in order to avoid paying the charge.

I'm not a lawyer but that feels pretty clearly like fraud.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#206

Post by jmccree »

Larrikin wrote: post #143
konspence wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An external ethernet dongle is more likely to break or get lost. Sure, but it's replaceable for the cheap cost of ~$10 - 20. > There's no VGA port either which is a necessity for me. 2007 called, they want their already-deprecated video standards back. > No CD drive either. 2000 called, they want their already-deprecated media storage standards back. >Is this thing a laptop or a big smartphone with no touch screen?…

Personally I think its absolutely ridiculous I paid $3000 for my Mac Book pro and I don't have a numpad with crucial keys like home, end, page up and down because they wanted the the track pad in the center. My old vaio laptop that was the same size fit the numpad just fine. I ended up buying having to buy one just because I was much slower at programming without it.

I think full numpads only make sense on 17" and above. There's no reason not to have home/end/pgup|down though, all of my 15" thinkpads have had that.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#207

Post by jmccree »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #112
alister wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil is far from the economic center of the Internet. South Korea, a country with 1/4 of the population of Brazil, is probably better connected because it's on the route to Japan, China, etc. Brazil's poor latency may be partly explained by the fact that a lot of their connections have to go through the US and Canada: "The shape of the Internet varies considerably when examining individual regions. In Europe, the m…

> South Korea, a country with 1/4 of the population of Brazil, is probably better connected because it's on the route to Japan, China, etc. Why would proximity to China matter? They probably have the worst internet in Asia (outside of DPRK of course).

Perhaps they are including Hong Kong which has a huge number of cable landings.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#208

Post by FrederikLi »

Cowicide wrote: post #59

Would like to see this for coffee shops.

Just check out the Original at http://speedspot.org and download the iOS or Android App. There you can find hotels, cafes, restaurants, etc. Bigger Database too. Still pretty crazy how the bad copy goes viral but not the original even if it's used by hundred thousands of people each month ... but hey such is life.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#209

Post by wtallis »

peteretep wrote: post #195
wtallis wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks to me like that only clearly applies to unauthorized access to programs and data stored on a computer. Unauthorized routing of packets through a computer is not obviously covered by that law.

The very, very first clause: > he causes a computer to perform any function with intent > to secure access to any program or data held in ***any*** > computer

No. That's not sufficient to classify the action as illegal. If you're accessing a public website, but through a wireless router that the owner doesn't want you using without paying for, then the data you're accessing is still data you're authorized to access (it being a public website, after all).

To get charged under this law, you would have to be accused of the unauthorized access of something on the router itself, since that is the only relevant computer you aren't authorized to use. The charges against you would have to be based on the theory that sending packets with a spoofed MAC address or user agent is accessing the routing program and tables on the router in an unauthorized manner. That argument delves much deeper into the law than just the first clause.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#210

Post by diminoten »

DanBC wrote: post #202
brownbat wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> courts reject arguments like this. If by "arguments like this," you mean following the law but with suspect motives, then one of the strengths of the legal system in the US is that the courts absolutely accept arguments like these. In criminal matters, you typically need both intent and some act forbidden by statute before a finding of guilt. You can't indict someone for ill will. Intent alone is not generally suff…

> In criminal matters, you typically need both intent and some act forbidden by statute before a finding of guilt. You can't indict someone for ill will. Obtaining goods by deception seems to cover this. Especially with the public admission of "I siged on, and had to pay, but discovered that my colleague did not have to pay so I was deceptive about the equipment I used, and the only reason I was deceptive was to avoi…

Can you find an example in case law where someone's been prosecuted for obtaining access to a system by spoofing their MAC ID or user agent string?

Surely this has come up before now, yes?

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