I turn off the wifi on my laptop when I am not using it, to presumably prevent hacking into it when I am not on it. However, I have noticed the CURRENT WEATHER appearing on my home screen, before I enter my password to actually use it! I searched, and a few years ago, people said it wasn't possible, but one commenter said, "The new windows might do it" (or some comment like that). Well, it seems that it HAS to be able to do it if it is showing current weather! So now, I am going to have to turn my laptop completely off to provide the level of security I thought I had! (I guess it won't be long before they can access my laptop even with the power off)
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Forced into windows 11 at work. They can't even get desktop icons to stay in the same place between reboots. They've been evolving backwards since about windows 7. The original windows 3.1 doesn't even seem so bad now.
Been off of windoze (and any ms products) since 2015. One of the best compute related decisions I've ever made
You may be able to disable your WiFi and bluetooth in the uefi bios. Then you could experiment on whether windows gets around that setting. The annoyance will be you basically have to restart the machine to turn wifi off or on.
Remove wireless PCIe card, then use a USB dongle. You will know exactly if it is on or off
Didn't see your reply when I sent mine.
weather services usually predict ahead several hours and can provide the predicted data without a connection.
I agree this is probably the case. Even my local rural weather service predicts 10 days out (although anything more than 2 isn't necessarily accurate). Payload probably contains at least a day or two in the future for the given location (zip code?).
What would be a good test, if you can determine how location is determined, would be to be offline and pick a location on the other side of the country or world and see if it is able to communicate and pull down the forecast.
Although you'd really have to know the specifics of the data. Simple thing like temp and a few types of weather (sunny, cloudy, rain, etc.) could be encoded very compactly. Given the type of bandwidth most people have, it's not inconceivable that updates could include the entire country or even world and be cached. Probably a drop in the bucket compared to, say, a Youtube video.
Best test would be a machine sitting between your laptop and the Internet using Wireshark to analyze the traffic.
If you have admin access you can always disable the wi-fi module
My current sop is to have the laptop plugged in, with the wifi off (now I know that it isn't), and then turn wifi on when I want to use it, and turn wifi back off when done, but still left plugged in. If I disable the wi-fi module, then I would have to go to the trouble of re-activating it, which may be more trouble than just turning the computer completely off. It's just aggravating that there is probably fine print in the "user agreement" that says something on the order of "windows will have access to your computer to provide updates and other information...."
You can do that with a screwdriver as well...
If you are that worried about it, either get a laptop with the wifi hardware switch, or take it out and use a USB wifi.
Also, "airplane mode" restricts use of cellular radios, not WiFi or BT.
Linux
2 words:
Faraday Cage
I agree, a Faraday cage is an excellent option to shield your laptop from electromagnetic signals.
Also works for RF if the cage is designed correctly
Who wants to tell him?
Legit. You would think the "doctor" would know that unless the computer is airgapped, it can connect to wifi any time.
Guess those PhDs aren't that useful.
ROFL the WORST customers for IT support are: yep, docs. Whether medical docs or academia docs, they're the diametric opposite of technically astute. PhDs haven't meant anything useful since before Galileo.
Airplane mode does not automatically turn off wifi. You have to turn it off yourself. You don't have to disable it entirly either, just make sure you click it off when you don't want it. Airplane mode only disables the cellular connection
On my ASUS laptop, toggling to airplane mode does disconnect internet, at least for my use (if I toggle it off, and then click a link, I get a "not connected to the internet" message, and the symbol for the internet indicates it is off; perhaps the people that are saying the "current weather" is just a projection from the previous day is correct)
Could be that when connected it fetches weather for current time and several hours ahead.
Turn all apple devices off and back on daily (I do this with most devices I have) to prevent governments/hackers from getting your data, its cuts them off at the knees.
How exactly does this prevent anyone from getting your data ?
Persistent malware that survives reboots does exist but is pretty rare. Often daily phone use can collect nasty bits in your phone's storage and a power cycle reboot will clear it. Refreshing the RAM (memory) is a process to do but very unlikely needed.
Edit: it won't completely stop them from gathering data but at least it makes them work harder for it, whether or not it actually works (they probably have something imbedded deep within all chips undetectable to virtually everyone), at least it can give you some peace of mind
Pretty rare? How so? Any keylogger would be installed until removed. If what you say about rebooting were true, then anti-malware software wouldn't exist. Not to mention rebooting would do nothing for data already collected by invasive software or web applications. The only way to keep your data safe would be to airgap your device and never take it online.
That makes sense. I operate under the assumption that every piece of hardware I have is backdoored in some way. I will quote my cousin when it comes to sensitive comms: do you like to jet ski?
I forget which manufacturer, but for some phones, they actually continue to gather info locally without internet, and then simply transmit that data when back online
Google. People have seen their location info even when they had location, wifi, and BT turned off.
my nearly decade old Lenovo has a second non removable battery...
The wifi and Bluetooth can be set to on while you are on Aiplane mode. I keep mine that way. The airlines worry about the frequency used for phone calls, so that is all you need to disable. It is in your setup, so you need to change your setup.
Yeah - if you fly on American they tell you to use your wifi to connect to their movies, tv, and sometimes music for free onboard.
I have a Faraday pouch I out my stuff in when I want to feel private.
I always turn mine off now when not in use.
I am actually in the process of going hard-wired at home. I just got a package about an hour ago with a bunch of cables I needed, and a patch panel for the attic.
Look on Craigslist for a factory getting rid of junk hardware - I see them all the time. You'll never have to buy anything new if you don't mind older stuff and the hassle of taking the stuff you don't need to the scrapyard. You'll never have to buy cables again
I've worked with weather services before. Usually when you query them you'll get an hourly forecast for the next 12 or 24 hours as a part of their payload. It would be trivial to cache that data and display it in the absence of an internet connection.
You'd be doing a better test if you turned off wifi while at home and monitored for a network connection to your notebook via your wifi router.
Assuming that router is the only available connection. Any open Wi-Fi could be connected to and the user would never know. Not to mention mesh Bluetooth networking and the like.