I plugged into ethernet (as wifi w/captive portal does not work for me). I think clearnet worked but I have no interest in that. Egress Tor traffic was blocked and so was VPN. I’m not interested in editing all my scripts and configs to use clearnet, so the library’s internet is useless to me (unless I bother to try a tor bridge).
I was packing my laptop and a librarian spotted me unplugging my ethernet cable and approached me with big wide open eyes and pannicked angry voice (as if to be addressing a child that did something naughty), and said “you can’t do that!”
I have a lot of reasons for favoring ethernet, like not carrying a mobile phone that can facilitate the SMS verify that the library’s captive portal imposes, not to mention I’m not eager to share my mobile number willy nilly. The reason I actually gave her was that that I run a free software based system and the wifi drivers or firmware are proprietary so my wifi card doesn’t work¹. She was also worried that I was stealing an ethernet cable and I had to explain that I carry an ethernet cable with me, which she struggled to believe for a moment. When I said it didn’t work, she was like “good, I’m not surprised”, or something like that.
¹ In reality, I have whatever proprietary garbage my wifi NIC needs, but have a principled objection to a service financed by public money forcing people to install and execute proprietary non-free software on their own hardware. But there’s little hope for getting through to a librarian in the situation at hand, whereby I might as well have been caught disassembling their PCs.
That’s not equal access. Everyone has equal access to the PCs, but not everyone has equal access to BYoD internet service.
Is someone claiming we only need PC access? If so, then you won’t mind if we scrap wifi altogether, right? BYoD internet service enables people to keep a data store with them which then connects periodically, which also empowers people to control the applications that are installed. That’s a different public service for difference purposes than a shared PC where your data does not persist and you cannot control the apps.
You can’t claim shit about equality for all and access without materials, when discussing byod. Make up your mind.
Everyone has access, byod is covered for 99% as extra convenience.
You aren’t being treated poorly, instead, you have unreasonable expectations. You need to adjust those. You are not a victim, nor were you rights violated.
You tried to circumvent security when the computer room was closed.
The librarians education most likely doesn’t cover anything more than turning things off and on, he/she isn’t likely to understand what you were doing, and the equipment isn’t maintained by the librarians - it’s simply located there.
Data persists both in the cloud, or on a memory stick. Free options exist.
There is PC access, and then there is byod access. It’s a false dichotomy to demand choosing one or the other, and harmful to people’s rights if you simultaneously design a system of workflow on the assumption that one replaces the other interchangeably. They are different services for different purposes. Don’t let the fact that some tasks can be achieved with both services cause you to lose sight of the fact that some use-cases cannot.
Everyone has PC access. Not everyone has BYoD WAN service access.
It’s not just convenience. It’s the capability and empowerment of controlling your own applications. If the public PC doesn’t have a screen reader and you are blind, the PC is no good to you and you are better served with BYoD service.
This remains to be supported. I do not believe it’s reasonable to only serve people with phones. Thus I consider it a reasonable expectation that people without a subscribed mobile phone still get BYoD WAN service.
None of the PCs will execute apps that you bring on a USB stick (but even if they did, the app you need to run may not be compatible with Windows). Also some library branches disallow USB sticks entirely.
You don’t have to believe it - everyone still knows you are. Time to wake up to reality.
That’s not reality. The reality is everyone has partial access (Firefox on a shared Windows PC only), while some people have full access via both public resources.
If you want to gain anything from this conversation, try to at least come to terms with the idea that Firefox is not the internet. The internet is so much more than that. Your experience and information is being limited by your perception that everything that happens in a browser encompasses the internet.
It’s not free. We paid tax to finance this. The moment you call it free you accept maladministration that you actually paid for.
You’re confusing the private sector with the public sector. In the private sector, indeed you simply don’t use the service and that’s a fair enough remedy. Financing public service is not optional. You still seem to not grasp how human rights works, who it protects, despite the simplicity of the language of Article 21.