this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Privacy

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (7 children)

In the EU they already had a complaint, because it violates GDPR, but in any case I would never use a public WiFi without a VPN, and even less in places with these conditions, there is also free WiFi in some Rstaurants (even in most McDonalds), public Libraries and others. Fuck surveillance advertising

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

There's just no reason to unless you are really skimping on phone data. Random wifi hotspots are one of the most dangerous things for an average joe in terms of infosec.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Agreed. My iPhone connects to my home VPN via Wireguard as soon as I leave my home WiFi. Has the added benefit of pihole ad filtering everywhere.

[–] Serinus 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So the first thing you give any sketchy WiFi is your home address?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yup. What are they gonna do that every other portscanning bad actor isn’t doing 24/7 already?

Also, how would they distinguish between my private VPN and that of a commercial provider?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Have you experienced any downsides to using pi hole? Does anything stop working?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

In the 6 years I've ran mine, I've not had any issues and I run a blocklist with over 1 million domains on it.

If I was to run into something that's blocked that I do want loaded, I can just open the pihole interface and either whitelist the blocked domain or disable blocking for a short time, each with just a couple clicks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I used to before but my family was extremely bothered that they couldn't click on ad links. If I remember correctly, it's pretty easy to set up if you want to just try it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Obviously the first ad links in google don’t work any more, which drives the wife crazy ;-) Also nowadays more and more websites complain about me using an adblocker.

But technically, not really any problems at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I have seen it on Europe... maybe there was some way to circumvent it hidden away, not sure. But you could type a random email and that's it, like they don't send anything to confirm the email or anything once you submit you have access to internet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

anonbox from ccc

[–] lemmington_steele 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Right, and this Walmart in Europe would be where exactly?

[–] Cort 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's England so no gdpr anyway

[–] Cort 3 points 1 year ago

UK gdpr not withstanding, the question asked was: where in Europe. UK remains a part of Europe post brexit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The provisions of the EU GDPR have been incorporated directly into UK law as the UK GDPR. It's ok to not know this stuff but it only takes like 10 seconds to google before you comment about something you don't know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

AFAIK it does not exist in Europe, but I meant that these conditions in the EU would not be tolerated. Maybe because of this there isn't a Walmart in the EU, there are a lot of Malls from other companies and none of these use this practices in their restaurants, mostly with free WiFi for their visitors. Offering free WiFi is already enough of a benefit for them, because it attracts customers, they do not need to intrude on their privacy with an obvious attempt to spam them and make money with their data.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was about to say.... Isn't using public wifi's extremely dangerous?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, because of this using an public WiFi without VPN is a no-go

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Went to a Walmart the other day and my phone automatically connected to a wifi that was apparently hosted by my cell carrier. Immediately turned on my VPN because wtf. I disconnected at first then realized I didn't have any service at all which was probably why it existed. Thankfully didn't need to log in but that's why I have Firefox relay.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They seem to explain pretty well how your data will be used, why would this violate GDPR?

[–] Cort 6 points 1 year ago

No way to opt out?