It's mind-blowing how at the same time some EU government guys pushing stuff like DSA while other do something like this (which is nice, and a complete opposite, if it's not honeypot anyways).
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
657 points (98.1% liked)
Technology
73740 readers
4437 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
657
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/25779751
The intative promises to be privacy-friendly with no tracking. Stating:
Your privacy is important. The WiFi4EU app ensures a private online experience with no tracking or data collection. Simply connect and enjoy free public Wi-Fi without concerns.
Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/wifi4eu-citizens
Will be interesting to see how this spans and plays out in reality. Looks promising too, did a quick scan of their builtin permissions and trackers and looks good too. (Scanning tool is called Exodus)
Indeed from their history of constantly wanting more control and invasive measures, always sold in the name of security, protection of minors, etc.. I'm highly sceptical and always asume the worst.
load more comments
(4 replies)
What's the problem with the Digital Services Act?
Yeah, of all the things to criticise the EU for the DSA is a bizarre pick. Challenging techbro dominance with simple and technically-sensible demands on the gatekeepers is a win for the average person in my book.
load more comments
(2 replies)
That's cool. Here in the US, we're this close to banning vaccines. *sad trombone sound
Having a union-wide regulatory framework for soda bottle caps, or mandatory categorization of cucumbers seems a lot less like a government overreach in comparison. Thanks, I guess... 🥲
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
oh dude, they promised to be privacy friendly! maybe I'm just too american to believe in promises.
You don't have to trust them any more than you trust your local Starbucks WiFi. We're at the point where your traffic should no longer be vulnerable just because you're on the wrong WiFi network.
load more comments
(14 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
Do you need that app to connect to a WiFi network?
No, the app is just a map of the hotspots.
If this does what it says on the box its huge
Well I don't know if that's a good use of EU money. I'd rather see investments in large and difficult infrastructure, rail, software, datacenters, industrial sectors we're currently lacking, grid investments - stuff like that.
End user internet access is more like thousands of small decentralised projects. The coordination might make it easier to use compared to if everyone did their own free wifi project, but that's such a small benefit...
I'm sure we could invest in all of them and money wouldn't be the problem.
As always, it's not like both aren't possible. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of railway projects ongoing at the same time, to only quote one of your examples.
A government can take care of more than one issue at a time, luckily.
It may be a small benefit for you (I assume you are german based on your server), but not every european country or citizen has the same access to internet. This is a good initiative, but obviously not primarily intended for the richer citizens/countries of the union.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I think this is mostly for non-EU tourists. You don't pay for roaming in EU anymore so you don't really need WiFi when traveling.
Recently mobile phone operators introduced a “fair use policy”, so it’s not really a”roam like at home” anymore, but data volumes can be limited to a fraction of what you are entitled to in your home country.
This is a point where WiFi might get more important again when traveling.
Well, speak for yourself. I don't have a running phone contract because I don't really use my phone much for calling or stick to open WiFi when I need to be online. Just got top-up mobile data for the times when there is no WiFi.
I definitely do want WiFi when travelling.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Honestly nowadays data plans are cheap on most mobile carriers and they're obligated to have them work accross EU, so you no longer really need Wi-Fi when traveling.
Also, I can see this being easily and constantly exploited via Wi-Fi attacks where hackers set up fake Hotspots with the same name as the closest legit one.
Meanwhile Czech carrier cartel:
BTW free Wi-Fi exploits are overrated with widespread HSTS
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
Damn, this is so cool.
We could have had this in the States too, but, well, you all know.
This will never be possible in the States. We still have areas with no cellular.
Surely that's unrelated to the billions of dollars that the telecom companies stole from the taxpayer after promising to build out infrastructure?
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
Free Wireless ISP, you say?
cheapskate romanian sounds
Germans are gonna start getting out their old cantennas or nanostations and point it at the closest hotspot
Of course I would never do such a thing, being half german, living in Germany. Certainly didn't live off a nearby restaurants wifi hotspot for almost 2 years.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Ahh yes, border free travel.. wait a minute, why are the Austrian police on the border here? Wait a minute, why are they stopping us..
Title is wrong. It's an old initiative, not even funded anymore. Ran from 2018 to 2020 with 120 Million EUR.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Thanks to EU roaming rules...
Not quite. I've come across a few plans that don't offer EU roaming, and also those where there's far less data offered than the regulation requires, or found a loophole.
Let's go for the examples of no EU roaming data:
T-Mobile CZ Twist IoT CR - IoT card, but it offers up to 500GB of data paid once a year (78 EUR), only usable in Czech Republic.
T-Mobile CZ 100GB edition - regular SIM, but also CR-only
Vodafone CZ GIGA 100 + 50 GB - also a regular prepaid, but no roaming
Swan Mobile (4ka) Sloboda Data - 300GB in Slovakia, but 0.144 EUR per MB in EU.
For the last example, they're also the same example that breaches the regulation with other packages. When I did the calculations, they exactly checked out for other 3 MNOs, so I guess I did them right, but they didn't for Swan.
Further confirming this is the fact that they have already received at least 2 (as far as I could find) fines for breaching these RLAH regulations, that is 15,000 and 90,000 EUR, but I suppose that just ends up being cheaper for them, as it still isn't fixed.
Anyway, perhaps they did in fact fix this, with a loophole.
For example, take Sloboda Nekonecno+ for 25EUR/month with "unlimited" (300GB) data. 8.25GB of EU roaming does not look right there.
So what is going on?
On paper, it's split up into base and additional package. Base package is 20EUR, and only has 2GB of data. Additional package with unlimited data is 5EUR/month, and as you could guess, cannot be purchased separately.
So, for base package, you get full allowance, thus 2GB. Additional package is calculated separately, (4.06504065041 / 1.30) * 2 is 6.25. And thus 8.25GB instead of 31.27GB was born.
load more comments
(1 replies)
More Europeans than ever can watch the live-streamed genocide that we've been arming and encouraging!
Through various deliberately InterPol-managed servers that track your telemetry.
load more comments
(1 replies)
So, if I live in the EU, what's stopping me from cancelling my home plan and making the wifi experience worse for everyone?
The fact that there's 93k access points and that's not very many when you consider the size of the EU and the average range and speed of an access point.
Limiting the bandwidth use of individual devices is pretty easy, and basically standard procedure for public networks. Even cheap consumer routers that come with ISP subscriptions can do that.
Why Wi-Fi? All the expense, none of the coverage.
Good luck trying to break through the mobile cartels.
view more: next ›