Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

airpass.tiagoalves.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 278 posts

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#131

Post by bc569a80a344f9c »

JonathonW wrote: post #126
bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking around briefly, you can replace it with this: `networksetup -setairportpower en0 on && [... set MAC ...] && networksetup -setairportpower en0 off` I think it's pretty safe to assume that modern Macs will always have en0 as the WiFi adapter, but if you wanted, you could use `networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder` to find the associated device.

Modern Macs do not always have en0 as the WiFi adapter (it's en1 on current iMacs and on the Mac Studio; en0 is the ethernet jack). But you're unlikely to be taking one of the machines that has built-in ethernet to the airport or coffeeshop.

Duh, also true on my Mac Mini. But yeah, “modern Mac laptops” probably makes the statement correct enough and still describes the entire set of targets.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#132

Post by anthk »

rafram wrote: post #41
SR2Z wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a frontend for you app, you probably just use Electron and get it over with in a few minutes instead of digging through the docs for Qt or some other framework. Is it worth it? Probably not, since this is a single-platform app to start with, but JS+HTML are easy to theme and customize, and Qt is... not quite as simple.

Where did you get Qt from? This is, again, a Mac-only app that doesn’t even have any windows. It’s just a menu bar icon and a notification. That’s incredibly simple to build with plain old Cocoa and Swift.

Or AppleScript maybe.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#133

Post by anonymars »

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".

These crappy WiFi portals are known for having ample download speeds too, right?

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#134

Post by andy99 »

mcshicks wrote: post #125
balls187 wrote: post #112

Haven’t ever encountered any place that had a wifi time limit. In the late 2000’s internet cafes had time limits but that was enforced on their own devices. Is there a specific scenario where time limited wifi is common place?

I think the name refers to the limits some airlines have. JAL for instance offers one hour free on some flights.

I was trying to understand how this could be used for flights. I've seen either having to enter your last name and seat, or loyalty plan number to get in-flight wifi. Are there really airline wifis that give every mac address a free amount of time?

A lot of airlines now offer free "messaging" - usually just text on common messaging apps like WhatsApp. I've been meaning for years to write some kind of server that could give me useful functionality over chat messages.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#136

Post by josu »

balls187 wrote: post #112

Haven’t ever encountered any place that had a wifi time limit. In the late 2000’s internet cafes had time limits but that was enforced on their own devices. Is there a specific scenario where time limited wifi is common place?

Airplanes. Some airlines offer 30 minutes of free wifi or something.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#138

Post by GTP »

iknowstuff wrote: post #118
GTP wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it has nearly no environmental downside and has no meaningful downside I think this is not the case. E.g., we replace our computers every few years, but not because the new ones can do things that you can't do with your current computer. It's because the software you use to do the same things keeps getting more resource-hungry.

Its called externalized cost and its as real in software as it is IRL

So the cost is there, it's just not paid (directly) by the developer. But we all end up paying someone else's externalized cost, included said developer that is paying some other developers' externalized costs.

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#139

Post by shepherdjerred »

aeonik wrote: post #46
paxys wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

How many 747's can the average person fit on the 128GB+ smartphone in their pocket?

Re: Airpass – Easily overcome WiFi time limits

#140

Post by BobbyTables2 »

aeonik wrote: post #46
paxys wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Excellent point!

And to top it off, the dual flights and whale would need complex orchestration too!

We just call it Kubernetes…

Post reply on HN