geo.provider.use_corelocation: true/false # presumably for tracking on MacOS
geo.provider.use_geoclue: true/false # presumably for tracking Linux users with Geoclue2 provider [1]
geo.enabled: true/false # presumably, turns the whole thing off
Some say[2][3], use_ options take precedence over network.url, so you need to set those to false.
It also appears[3][4], that setting geo.provider.testing to true might be required.
One time I worked at a zoom competitor, and our team got to prototype a "detect if these people are in the same room as each other" feature for dealing with echo cancellation etc, where everyone's laptop would emit a unique high frequency, and everyone's laptop would listen for other frequencies. Of course it worked in pristine conditions and fell down in the real world. But it was a fun experiment...
People need to learn manners, nobody should be using video calling without headphones. It's insane whenever someone joins and we hear all their background, feedback of whoever is speaking, etc as if nobody has ever told them to mute or stop using speaker in their life.
> People need to learn manners, nobody should be using video calling without headphones.
OK? it still sucks even with headphones. Imagine the following scenario: You are in a meeting using your headphones as you suggest. A coworker a few seats away from you are in the same meeting using their own headsphones. When they talk you hear their real voice reach your ears first (this happens with even the best noise canceling headphones to some extent) and then you hear their voice with some delay from the meeting.
This is not about manners or headphones.
Better meeting software identifies when this is happening and they suppress the streamed voice of your coworker just for you.
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.
My university didn't take attendance either, but some in my country do. As I understand it, the reasons are:
1. Some students think they can skip class and catch up through self-study, but actually they can't. The same I'd-rather-be-partying attitude that stops them attending lectures also stops them finding time to self-study. College is the first time students' time management is put to the test, and some students can't handle it. Giving them some external motivation to get out of bed does them a favour, in the long term.
2. Some courses are discussion-and-debate oriented. Less so in engineering, moreso in arts subjects. If Socratic debate is a key part of the class, students who don't show up will of course lose grades - and accurate record keeping makes sure that's done fairly.
3. Some governments require certain reporting to ensure people getting student visas are, in fact, students. Taking attendance for foreign students is one way to satisfy this.
4. When someone fails a course they'll often lodge an appeal. Perhaps they'll say the course was badly taught, or the exam covered material that wasn't in the lectures. Knowing whether the student attended the lectures helps adjudicate such complaints fairly.
A highly ranked university that attracts smart, self-motivated students has less reason to take attendance - whereas a university with lots of students skipping class, failing and complaining has more reason.
It was the same when I studied applied physics in England many years ago. No one checked or cared if we attended lectures in the physics and maths departments. In fact anyone could have attended the lectures even if they were not a student because there was always plenty of room. But the law department where my wife studied, at the same university, did check who was attending.
As for laboratory exercises in the physics department, they were in theory compulsory but still no one checked. The final year included a long experimental project that had to be documented and conclusions defended in a viva. Again no one formally checked that we actually did it but as we were grouped into small teams for this anyone who didn't pull their weight would have been reported by their fellow students and would not have had access to the experimental results which would have made it difficult to write it up and defend.
Compulsory attendance used to be far less common in colleges, but teenagers in America mature far more slowly than they used to and undergrads are still effectively children. Universities need to babysit them or they'll wreck the dropout rate
I take attendance (the old-fashioned way) in my college classes for a couple of reasons:
- Some students are "sponsored" by scholarships or organizations that request attendance data.
- I want to know the attendance record for a student who is asking for an extension, or extra-credit work, or some other informal accommodation.
- I like to draw fancy graphs correlating attendance and final grades.
But other than that, I don't care if students are in class or not. They're adults. Learning is their responsibility.
I assume that smart comp sci kids already have some sort of proxy running on an Android phone that publishes the current in-classroom WiFi environment, and a browser plugin or Linux hack that their stay-at-home friends can run that intercepts the geolocation calls and spoofs the responses with what the in-classroom android phone is seeing.
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.
Oh wow, it's the modern version of the clicker, the physical device assigned to you at the beginning of the term used for classroom participation and attendance checking, and which was most definitely defeatable via "the unpatchable strategy of Having Friends".
Now the question: can you spoof your location? Say you are an admin on your system (for instance you run a Linux distro), can you make your OS return the same list of SSID/BSSIDs as your friend who is in the classroom (or as you recorded the day before) to pretend you are there?
Would be a fun experiment, and a nice follow-up post :-).
How come this project needs multiple Skylift devices to work best?
Since wifi antennas are generally not directional, shouldn't one Skylift device be able to broadcast each wifi beacon frame with a different transmission power?
I've experienced this unintentionally when I've moved and taken my access point with me. Fresh after moving in, I'll pull out my phone and it'll tell me I'm still at my old house's location, because its using the proximity to my wifi AP's BSSID to determine that. Waited another 30 seconds and it corrected itself.
Readit News
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.
It also appears[3][4], that setting geo.provider.testing to true might be required.
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1063572
[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24932199/how-to-change-f...
[3] https://security.stackexchange.com/a/268825
[4] https://stackoverflow.com/a/24937564
chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/location-guard-v3/h...
firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/location-guar...
OK? it still sucks even with headphones. Imagine the following scenario: You are in a meeting using your headphones as you suggest. A coworker a few seats away from you are in the same meeting using their own headsphones. When they talk you hear their real voice reach your ears first (this happens with even the best noise canceling headphones to some extent) and then you hear their voice with some delay from the meeting.
This is not about manners or headphones.
Better meeting software identifies when this is happening and they suppress the streamed voice of your coworker just for you.
This sounds like an awful idea.
https://www.science.org/content/article/sounds-you-cant-hear...
1. Some students think they can skip class and catch up through self-study, but actually they can't. The same I'd-rather-be-partying attitude that stops them attending lectures also stops them finding time to self-study. College is the first time students' time management is put to the test, and some students can't handle it. Giving them some external motivation to get out of bed does them a favour, in the long term.
2. Some courses are discussion-and-debate oriented. Less so in engineering, moreso in arts subjects. If Socratic debate is a key part of the class, students who don't show up will of course lose grades - and accurate record keeping makes sure that's done fairly.
3. Some governments require certain reporting to ensure people getting student visas are, in fact, students. Taking attendance for foreign students is one way to satisfy this.
4. When someone fails a course they'll often lodge an appeal. Perhaps they'll say the course was badly taught, or the exam covered material that wasn't in the lectures. Knowing whether the student attended the lectures helps adjudicate such complaints fairly.
A highly ranked university that attracts smart, self-motivated students has less reason to take attendance - whereas a university with lots of students skipping class, failing and complaining has more reason.
As for laboratory exercises in the physics department, they were in theory compulsory but still no one checked. The final year included a long experimental project that had to be documented and conclusions defended in a viva. Again no one formally checked that we actually did it but as we were grouped into small teams for this anyone who didn't pull their weight would have been reported by their fellow students and would not have had access to the experimental results which would have made it difficult to write it up and defend.
- Some students are "sponsored" by scholarships or organizations that request attendance data. - I want to know the attendance record for a student who is asking for an extension, or extra-credit work, or some other informal accommodation. - I like to draw fancy graphs correlating attendance and final grades.
But other than that, I don't care if students are in class or not. They're adults. Learning is their responsibility.
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.
Some examples: on a train, on the underground, in a train station, in a mall, in an office building, ...
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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.
Deleted Comment
Would be a fun experiment, and a nice follow-up post :-).
Since wifi antennas are generally not directional, shouldn't one Skylift device be able to broadcast each wifi beacon frame with a different transmission power?