[HN Gopher] It's your fault my laptop knows where I am
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It's your fault my laptop knows where I am
Author : nicosalm
Score : 38 points
Date : 2025-11-19 21:58 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.amoses.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.amoses.dev)
| ralsei wrote:
| Good article, but you could also just use a VPN to trick it.
| wsces wrote:
| No, a VPN would only change the source IP of your request which
| the author specifically states isn't how this system works: the
| browser uses its host OS' Location Services to self report its
| location based on GPS or Wi-Fi AP locations.
|
| That said, I hope the service doesn't implicitly trust data
| sent by untrusted clients like web browsers, otherwise someone
| could just use something like this to send it a false location:
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/spoof-geolocation/i...
| ralsei wrote:
| Ohh. Yeah I suppose that's what I meant. I thought a VPN also
| spoofed the location
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Even if the browser was super locked down you could trivially
| spoof a few SSIDs broadcast from the desired area in theory..
| DrawTR wrote:
| The SSID (name, like the article mentions) is different
| than the bSSID (mac address of the access point), so I
| don't think it would be that easy to spoof.
| 1bpp wrote:
| Shouldn't be any harder than the name.
| bitwize wrote:
| A device can triangulate its own location locally, given the
| WiFi hotspots around it, and transmit that information via a
| JavaScript API. A VPN won't flummox this mechanism.
| pkulak wrote:
| I use a Firefox preference to pin my location to a spot near, but
| not at, my house:
|
| user_pref("geo.provider.network.url",
| 'data:application/json,{"location": {"lat": 45.0, "lng": -122.0},
| "accuracy": 128.0}');
|
| I _believe_ this also stops wifi data from leaking anywhere.
| denysvitali wrote:
| I've recently vibe-coded "where-am-i", a small CLI that returns
| your approximate location using the technology described here.
|
| https://github.com/denysvitali/where-am-i
|
| Tbh, I think this geolocation method is amazing, and I'm grateful
| it exists, because GPS indoor really sucks.
| jbmchuck wrote:
| Honest question - what's your use case for needing GPS indoors?
| I generally know where I am when I'm indoors :)
| p1necone wrote:
| Is it common for North American universities to take attendance?
| Seems like a whole lot of effort to gain little and infantilize
| your students. They're paying tuition, and if they don't show up
| to class they get punished by not learning enough and
| subsequently failing their exams/assessments. And if they don't
| fail their exams/assessments then clearly mandating lecture
| attendance for them wasn't necessary anyway.
| savanaly wrote:
| If you require attendance to graduate, then your degree signals
| conformity and grit, and thus has some value to show to
| employers who care about those stats but can't really measure
| them any other way.
| dataflow wrote:
| I think it's worth pondering why you feel paying tuition enters
| the assessment of the situation. The justification would seem
| to stand on its own either way, right? Or would your opinion
| change if tuition was free?
| wrs wrote:
| I was punished by getting into grad school, going to the "meet
| the faculty" party, and having my Algorithms professor greet me
| with "oh, you're the one who never came to class". (I can't
| resist pointing out, now that it's safe, that it seemed like
| his TA taught quite a few of his classes...)
| foltik wrote:
| In my experience it's common for large intro level classes.
| While I personally never liked these policies, I do think it's
| beneficial to the average student to incentivize attendance.
| Think 18 year olds who aren't able to self regulate or fully
| understand the consequences until it's too late. A "pick
| yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality just hurts the
| average quality of education.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You misunderstand. The customer is the government, which pays
| for student education through 'student loans'. The government
| is an absentee farmer who pays a farm labourer to produce a
| crop many years in the future. The labourer would rather take
| the money and plant nothing, so the absentee landlord farmer
| wants him to send photos of the seed being planted.
|
| But why won't the crop grow on its own? It is strongly
| incentivized to live! And yet it does not. So you need to send
| photos of tilling the soil, planting the seed, watering, so
| that one day we might come there and see a harvested crop.
| ginko wrote:
| Maybe it's because I studied in Austria where universities
| generally provide very little handholding to students but I don't
| understand the point of compulsory attendance in university
| lectures. If students think they can pass exams without attending
| the lectures then they should be able to do that. I certainly did
| that once or twice when I realized I needed some more credits
| before the end of the term. It's a different thing with
| lab/exercise sessions but your lack of participation there would
| be noticed anyway.
| incompatible wrote:
| My PC doesn't have any wireless connections and the Geolocation
| API always fails. I guess I'd fail this course (which is
| apparently correct, as I was supposed to be attending in person
| with a laptop.)
|
| Edit: Presumably it would be possible to hack the browser to
| return a false position.
|
| Edit: Make it a convenient browser add-on, perhaps. There must be
| other applications.
|
| Edit: pkulak points out that you just have to set a Firefox
| option. Why do I even comment on things I know nothing about.
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(page generated 2025-11-19 23:00 UTC)