Or you could just ask them to avoid confusion as it takes 5 seconds and they may have a way of doing things that you don't know about? It's respectful and it potentially saves you a lot of hassle if it doesn't work and you need to troubleshoot it.
Comment on Has ethernet become illegitimate? A librarian flipped out after spotting me using ethernet
MisshapenDeviate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
If it was a publicly available Ethernet port, it was likely for public use. The fact that she thought it was malicious speaks to ignorance on her part, not yours.
BolexForSoup@kbin.social 2 months ago
Icalasari@fedia.io 2 months ago
Yeah. For all we know, there could be a sign in/out thing at the desk for if you use ethernet - She DID think OP was taking one of the library's cables after all, which implies the public has access, possibly through a sign in/out system
coffeeClean@infosec.pub 2 months ago
I’ve asked librarians a full range of tech questions about what works, what’s blocked, what’s allowed… they /never/ have a clue because of outsourcing. In the 90s, I would say you are spot on. Things have evolved to where the policy is decided non-transparently, it’s outsourced to an unreachable company, and librarians are simply as uninformed as the public. Trial and error. If you read the AUPs it never says Tor is banned at libraries, but they simply block it. Experimentation is the way people get answers in my area.
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Even ignoring that, if internet via a wired ethernet connection isn’t an option they provide for whatever reason… their network infrastructure shouldn’t allow the connection anyway. It should be blocked as an unknown device on the network end, regardless if someone plugs into the network.
DoomBot5@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, having services blocked on Wi-Fi and not ethernet just tells me that their IT staff didn’t properly configure the network in public areas properly. That ethernet port should have been disabled, physically locked, or properly configured to use the public network like the Wi-Fi does.
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Exactly, and let’s give them the benefit of the doubt since we don’t know. The librarian or assistant helping OP probably just doesn’t know much about the IT stuff other than how to help people get on the wifi. And it is entirely possible that they’re NEVER seen anyone even try the port before, that’s not common at all. Actually managing the IT infrastructure at that level is almost surely NOT part of their job.
WiFi has been included in essentially everything for over a decade. I mean even ignoring laptops having Wifi way before mobile devices, even going back to the origin of smartphones for the masses, the original iPhone had Wifi back in 2007, that’s 17 years ago.
DoomBot5@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Oh I’ve got nothing against how the librarians handled it. I’m more concerned that their IT staff failed to properly shield the library from liabilities like OP.