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Should’ve clicked to have it reevaluated.
I think the point of this post is all the stuff below the email field. Yikes.
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
They seem to explain pretty well how your data will be used, why would this violate GDPR?
I might be wrong but i think it is because they don’t give you the option to opt out and use the wifi.
Should they? I would simply not connect to their Wi-Fi and move on, it’s not like they are obligated to provide you internet.
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.
Better to send a disposable mail, where yo can receive the log data before it expired.
eg
- https://maildrop.cc
- https://altmails.com
- https://www.disposablemail.com
- https://www.lazyinbox.com/#/
- https://www.guerrillamail.com
etc
anonbox from ccc
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.
I was about to say… Isn’t using public wifi’s extremely dangerous?
Yes, because of this using an public WiFi without VPN is a no-go
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.
Wireguard and PiHole combo is such a blessing.
Have you experienced any downsides to using pi hole? Does anything stop working?
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.
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.
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.
At least they’re telling you. There’s also a lot of hidden surveillance in stores - they’ve done it with Bluetooth and cameras for some time. Things like monitoring how long you look at products and evaluating your reactions to displays.
That’s why I always introduce a good bit of entropy to my shopping patterns:
-Enter and go straight to produce
-Spend 20 minutes examining eggplants
-Walk up and down 5 aisles pausing exactly the square of the aisle number in seconds.
-Grab a box of tampons
-Grab what I need as quickly as possible
-Return tampons
-Checkout and leaveSomewhere a marketing team is spending hours trying to figure out how to improve the conversion rates for tampons and eggplants for customers in my demo.
Don’t forget to flick and knock on various fruits and vegetables. Randomize how many flicks/knocks per item, and throw in a few on produce items that normally don’t get that kind of test e.g. grapes or potatoes.
At least they’re telling you.
Now there telling you. They just didn’t ask for consent before.
That’s what I mean.
Walmart, the biggest grocery retailer in the entire United States, uses face tracking in the majority of their stores in several sections, and we’re concerned about their Wi-Fi?
The Wi-Fi seems like such a minor problem compared to them collecting massive amounts of data off of something you aren’t consenting to explicitly.
Like you walk into their stores and they can know: How often you visit, what items you buy, what payment method you use most often, what items you looked at and what aisles you visit, who you bring with you, what your kids look like, what disabilities you may have, size of your household, and whatever else they want. There’s basically no respect for any privacy in their stores.
The US is a privacy nightmare in competition with China. Most of the US doesn’t have any option over their privacy. You just don’t get it here.
It’s even worse as an associate. They make us sign up for some social media I never use, download apps on our phones, and make us give them our handprints for a machine to take out our tills. And we’re getting face scanned by cameras all day. Dystopian nightmare and it makes me feel ashamed to have accepted the job here.
I use GOS and therefore believe that I have some level of protection on the WiFi level based off of that, and I have their apps on a separate profile but it’s getting tougher on privacy here at Walmart.
Edit: That’s also why I have no pictures of me in my socials and deleted my Facebook, Instagram, and twitter, so they shouldn’t have too many ways to market to me aside through my debit and credit cards possibly.
Revoke the data privileges of the app on your phone. That will effectively neuter it, while you can show them it’s there.
I have all of their apps on a separate profile. One app I do sadly need data for to check my schedule and look up prices of things.
Why would anyone interested in privacy connect to any public WiFi? That’s crazy.
When you need service, but data is blocked by all the steel in the ceiling/roof. I’ve used it, but with my VPN active. I wonder if they’re now going to try to block VPN services?
More like “we were doing this before, but now we have to tell you we are doing it”.
Why are all you mother fuckers shopping at Walmart. They are a welfare corporation offloading their costs to tax payers because despite making tons of money they pay shit and skirt employee benefits laws by keeping worker hours low and give new employees info on how to get financial aid such as food stamps.
This is the most privileged thing you could say.
“Hey, why isn’t everyone eating sustainably sourced GMO-free, organic, locally-grown food all the time?”
Spoiler alert: it costs more
Yeah, this is the thing. Does literally anyone want to go to Walmart? No. Is it the place I can afford? Increasingly, still no. Not sure I can even afford to walk past whatever the good version of a Whole Foods is today, though.
Cause WinCo doesn’t always have what I need, but most importantly:
I’m poor.
A lot of people in rural areas find themselves in situations like being 10 minutes from a walmart and an hour from any other option. So then anything besides walmart costs gas and time, on top of the product cost difference to begin with.
Nobody wants to drive extra after 8 hours of shitty minimum wage work and/or taking care of children.
Not like other grocery stores are any good for workers, either.
Because all of the other retailers do the same shit only with higher prices. Here in Canada they don’t pay their employees any less than the competition, yet their prices are 30-40% cheaper on average.
That extra 40% doesn’t result in better working conditions for the employees, it goes directly to the shareholders and bonuses for the C-suite.
I respect the hell out of Walmart because they actually keep their price increases tied to inflation and aren’t out there trying to sell a loaf of poverty white bread for $5 or a pack of 4 chicken breasts for $37.
I got some insight from a friend who works at a major supplier for these retail stores in Canada. He said how they manage prices is that when they anticipate a rise in cost they’ll jack the price all the way to a future projected target instead of following the current inflationary rate so that they won’t need to constantly quote their customers different prices. They don’t care because they know it will get passed downstream.
I needed a job, alright. I usually shop at hannaford although it’s expensive. I wanna farm someday.
Not sure about this Walmart case but most you can write any email like random letters a@gmail.com or not even the Gmail part as long as it’s a valid looking mail and then works like you don’t even have to confirm the email or anything.
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Fair, but even using your normal router without a VPN isn’t good imo. Even if it’s not as bad as public. And VPNs are usually an extreme measure. If I was using public WiFi, and doing stuff on my bank account, then yes, VPN all the way, but I usually don’t feel that I need it.
Why is the vpn necessary when you have https to the bank? Just to hide you’re ip from the bank?
Public WiFi would make me skeptical when I always put in my passwords.
Well im just saying thats what https is for but there’s nothing wrong with extra security
So if https is all that’s needed, why do VPNs recommend using them at public locations? Just false advertising? I click on my bank app and it always wants a password and I guess I don’t know enough about network engineering. I’m interested in Android Development but don’t know much about WiFi I guess.
Marketing mostly. The vpn makes an encrypted tunnel that you’re traffic goes thru. If using https and vpn there are 2 layers of encryption. It’s not false advertising bc an extra layer doesn’t hurt. Now if your sending password over http it would help but you shouldnt be using a site that sends passwords over plaintext. I would say vpn is mostly to either hide your ip from websites or to hide internet activity from your isp
So more for privacy than security, so it would make sense to use a VPN depending on your threat model I suppose, or how much you care.
I always wonder why those VPN absolutists aren’t happy with your regular HTTPS. Sure, maybe HTTP is safer with the VPN, but it just hides your real IP from the target website.
it also hides the websites you visit from your ISP, who often likes to profile you based on your browsing habits.
Yeah but it’s on a public wifi
in that case, it hides the websites you visit from:
- the ISP providing the network, and
- the business who offers the public WiFi,
both of them probably being very eager to profile your browsing habits (as seen on the image in the post).
It shifts from the isp to the VPN provider, who isn’t doing that profiling yet.
yes.
Cause I get shit service in Walmart and don’t really have any other option if I need to look something up while shopping.
Same here. I wonder if they do it on purpose.
Fake email and vpn = Free private connection
You dont even have to type a real email it doesn’t verify anything. Just something@somewhere.xxx
Your phone simply being in the store with Wi-Fi enabled makes you personally identifiable. A request for your email when they have your location, shopping habits, taste in electronics, estimated address, browsing habits, and your full appearance isn’t shocking. That no one has pointed this out yet is a bit eye opening.
Mac address randomization has been enabled by default since Android 10. I would assume iPhone does something similar.
iOS requires each network to individually be randomized, there’s no singular setting, unfortunately.
That was an interesting read. Didn’t know stores were doing that.
They can track you even if you dont accept. Turn Wifi off. If you connect, use VPN home.
They can use your wifi signal as a beacon by triangulating the signal strength from at least 3 different points. Then they can figure out in which departments you spend the most time, how long you spend in store, heatmaps, which aisles you skip and generic info like what time you visit, which locations you also shop at.
A quick google for “Retail Wifi tracking” brings up mirame.net , where you can see some of the features.
I would suggest to set your phone to flight mode if you see a “free wifi” sign in your shopping mall.
I fucking hate technology, man. I want to go to the 1800’s and give the luddites C4.
You do realize they were almost certainly doing this before, right?
More of shock value of them announcing it and requiring an email now.
Damn now I have to put in my real email! noooooo I don’t know how to avoid this only real emails work?
I’ve never had this happen before so I didn’t know. I just thought it was interesting how they’re requiring this now though.
It’s a good thing they don’t have high resolution cameras tracking everything you look at, or they might know what you were thinking about buying
It’s a good thing I don’t have any socials for them to trace me back to. And since I work there, I’m always looking at shit that will prolly throw them off.
Expecting privacy on someone else’s network is absurd.
