this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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I noticed a library that has ethernet ports, which I must say is quite impressive. So many libraries strictly expect people to use wifi which has downsides:

  • many (most?) wifi NICs have no FOSS drivers (ethernet is actually the only way I can get my FOSS laptop online)
  • ethernet is faster and consumes less energy
  • wifi radiation harms bees and other insects according to ~72 studies (update: separate discussion thread here which shows the research is heavily contested)
  • apparently due to risk of surrounding households consuming bandwidth, 2FA is used (which is inadvertently exclusive at some libraries)
  • enabling wifi on your device exposes you to snooping by other people’s iPhones and Androids according to research at University of Hamburg. Every iPhone in range of your device is collecting data about you and sending it to Apple (e.g. SSIDs your device previously connected to). From what I recall about this study, it does not happen at the network level, so ethernet devices attached to the same network would not be snooped on (and certainly SSID searches would not be in play).
  • (edit) users at risk to AP spoofing (thanks @NoneYa@lemm.ee for pointing this out)

I don’t know when (if ever) I encountered a library with ethernet. Is this a dying practice and I found an old library, or a trending practice by well informed forward-thinking libraries?

BTW, the library that excludes some people from wifi by imposing mobile phone 2FA is not the same library that has ethernet ports, unfortunately. If you can’t use the wifi of the SMS 2FA library then your only option is to use their Windows PCs.

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[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (13 children)

Every lemmy traffic is public. NSA can just create their own instance and save everything. Why is it matter if one instance is behind cloudflare? The can also see your posts.

There are other services for private communication, lemmy was never advertised as one.

[–] freedomPusher@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (12 children)

Every lemmy traffic is public.

Certainly not. Your unhashed password is not public. Your DMs are only normally visible to intended parties + their admins. Your IP address is only public when you interact in a generative way. Your login times and the links you visit are also non-public unless you generate content in response. Lemmy votes are also not public (unlike kbin).

NSA can just create their own instance and save everything.

No they can’t. Anyone can create an instance but that instance cannot inherently encroach on non-public data of other instances. But if the NSA is in your threat model for some reason, the NSA /can/ easily get what they want from Cloudflare and it need not even be a tailored ops scenario.

There are other services for private communication, lemmy was never advertised as one.

Disclosure is only the tip of the iceberg. Cloudflare is also a gatekeeper. When a lemm.ee user writes a post, there are several groups of people who are excluded from viewing it. Cloudflare controls which browsers people can use. CF users feed a business model that a privacy abuser profits from. There are countless problems with Cloudflare beyond the reckless disclosure problem.

[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lemmy votes are effectively public. They are sent to all federating instances. Unless this was changed? See https://lemmy.world/post/1033769

[–] freedomPusher@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I recall reading in a kbin bug (which reported that votes are public and should not be) that Lemmy votes are not. So I could have been misinformed.. i did not look into it.

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