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Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

airpass.tiagoalves.me

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Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#101

Post by unixhero »

paxys wrote: post #43
classichasclass wrote: post #3

Alternatively, if you don't want to run the whole Electron app, the money is this line: sudo.exec("/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport en0 -z && ifconfig en0 ether `openssl rand -hex 6 | sed 's/\(..\)/\1:/g; s/.$//'`",

200 bytes for the business logic. 47MB for the UI & boilerplate around the business logic. I get that this may be the easiest way to develop and publish an application today, but it's sad that this is the direction we have taken in recent years.

Yes but you need a space station OS (Unix) to enjoy the terseness of 47-200 bytes of business logic.

ps: I love both space stations and Unix

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#102

Post by IgorPartola »

dtech wrote: post #92
dented42 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy doesn’t really work here. Because there is a downside. It’s slow, takes up a ton of memory, lots of disk space… When you have so many processes on a modern machine competing for resources, when every app chooses to be bloated and slow it really adds up.

That is more a tragedy of the commons thing. For each individual app the comparison holds true

And since we do have app stores as gate keepers, this could easily be remedied by the app stores. They wouldn’t even have to penalize you. Just put a score on there for app size (and app responsiveness) compared to the median in that category. Put this near the star rating from the reviews. Executives don’t generally care that you as an engineer want to reduce an app size by 10% but they really really care about how the app looks on the app stores because that’s what they show to people and what they are judged on.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#103

Post by alt227 »

kazinator wrote: post #6

This has been an option in Android network settings forever: randomize your MAC. I think it's enabled by default now? It's a basic privacy feature; you can be fingerprinted by your device's MAC.

How does that work with MAC address conflicts and clashes? I naively thought every MAC address had to be unique.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#104

Post by sheepscreek »

WD-42 wrote: post #52
aeonik wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern app bloat in one analogy: Business logic size: ~20 bytes Total app size: ~47 MB = 47,000,000 bytes Bloat factor: 47,000,000 / 20 = 2,350,000 Let’s scale this up and say the business logic is 1 pound. Then the whole app would weigh: 1 lb × 2,350,000 = 2,350,000 pounds What weighs ~2.35 million pounds? - A fully loaded Boeing 747-8: ~987,000 lbs - Another fully loaded 747-8: ~987,000 lbs - A blue whale: ~330,000…

This is a cool visualization, thanks.

I like your username, and what happened to WD-41?

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#105

Post by lostlogin »

WD-42 wrote: post #89
aquafox wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note: Transporting a human in a car is (in relation to weight and size) like using a standard shopping cart to transport two 1L bottles of water. So the next time you walk through a pedestrian area, imagine everyone carrying a bag would use a shopping cart instead. That would be a huge traffic jam -- exactly like what you see on the road!

I've been pretty aware of this ever since I became a cyclist. I will ride down to the corner store to pick up a six pack and some chips, throw them in a backpack and ride back. It's easy. I see people driving their cars to do the same thing. All that weight and space for a 6 bottles of beer. There is massive waste all around us.

There is also the time component. Off peak and with a decent sized backpack (change of clothes, laptop, food etc) it takes me the same time to go 6km as it does to drive it.

At peak it’s 1/4 to 1/3rd the time.

Cars are slow around town.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#106

Post by rafram »

catlifeonmars wrote: post #35
dizhn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't circumvent the sms code requirement most free wifi services use.

I have never seen this before

It's required by law in some countries, and it leads to some very funny chicken-and-egg situations with airport WiFi.

Istanbul Airport added a workaround: a physical passport scanner that stores your info and generates a code as an alternative to SMS verification. The whole thing just feels like a VPN ad.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#107

Post by dizhn »

rs186 wrote: post #71
dizhn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't circumvent the sms code requirement most free wifi services use.

I think they are extremely rare, and I would rather just use my mobile data instead of giving them my phone number. Definitely does not happen on "free trials" on in-flight Wi-Fi for obvious reasons.

A now deleted comment reminded me that this is mostly for in-flight wifi where it makes much more sense. Mostly no SMS there either.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#108

Post by lostlogin »

anon7000 wrote: post #75
aeonik wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern app bloat in one analogy: Business logic size: ~20 bytes Total app size: ~47 MB = 47,000,000 bytes Bloat factor: 47,000,000 / 20 = 2,350,000 Let’s scale this up and say the business logic is 1 pound. Then the whole app would weigh: 1 lb × 2,350,000 = 2,350,000 pounds What weighs ~2.35 million pounds? - A fully loaded Boeing 747-8: ~987,000 lbs - Another fully loaded 747-8: ~987,000 lbs - A blue whale: ~330,000…

Well, if you COULD ship something across the world on a private 747 with extra features to protect your cargo, and it has nearly no environmental downside and has no meaningful downside vs a smaller airplane… you’d probably do it! There’s no incentive in software to get a smaller, more efficient plane, and plenty of incentive to use the big thing for free that has all the extra features

> Well, if you COULD ship something across the world on a private 747 with extra features to protect your cargo

Qatar might even give you a plane!

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#109

Post by rafram »

thisislife2 wrote: post #90
rafram wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does a Mac-only app that shows a menu bar icon and a notification popup need to be Electron…? That’s 30 lines of Swift, max.

It doesn't need to be - on macOS, it could even just as well have been a simple Xbar Plug-In! ( https://xbarapp.com/ ).

Or Alfred script, Raycast plugin, Shortcuts shortcut, shell alias, and the list goes on. There are a lot of decent options; "50+ MB Electron app" is, in my opinion, not one.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#110

Post by lostlogin »

leptons wrote: post #95
dented42 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy doesn’t really work here. Because there is a downside. It’s slow, takes up a ton of memory, lots of disk space… When you have so many processes on a modern machine competing for resources, when every app chooses to be bloated and slow it really adds up.

It doesn't "take up a ton of memory" and if you think 47MB is "a lot of disk space" then maybe you need a bigger disk. Most laptops have at least 250GB, so this program would take up about 0.0188% of disk space, which is frankly not a lot. I had PDF files way larger than that. And you only need to run it once, you do not need to keep it loaded and running all the time, so it doesn't "take up a ton of memory".

This is how we have ended up with huge cars and huge houses etc. Storing huge volumes of unneeded junk isn’t solved by have more space. Store less junk.
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