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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by Sunny@slrpnk.net to c/technology@lemmy.world

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)

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[-] hisao@ani.social 107 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

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).

[-] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[-] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

But those are all publicly available pieces of legislation. It's quite a leap to go from that to just assuming they'll secretly and illegally spy on you through public wifi networks, without any law allowing them to do so. Besides, if they have no problem doing that, why would internet through your European ISP be any safer?

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[-] BlueBockser@programming.dev 8 points 3 weeks ago

What's the problem with the Digital Services Act?

[-] rmuk@feddit.uk 17 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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[-] LMurch@thelemmy.club 95 points 3 weeks ago

That's cool. Here in the US, we're this close to banning vaccines. *sad trombone sound

[-] deafboy@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

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... 🥲

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[-] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 69 points 3 weeks ago

Title is wrong. It's an old initiative, not even funded anymore. Ran from 2018 to 2020 with 120 Million EUR.

[-] AlsaValderaan 22 points 3 weeks ago

A bit offtopic about a pet peeve of mine, but this is why it'd be super nice if social media that end up getting screenshot had absolute timestamps. Thank you for letting us know.

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 15 points 3 weeks ago

my bad! I misread the context and had not heard of it before - yet living in the EU. I will change the title. I got confused as I saw their post on LinkedIn, and it was posted recently: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-commission_wifi4eu-activity-7359136374895046656-oXYi

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

One of their access points has saved my skin twice now in the past 2 months, so I'm happy it exists.

[-] giacomo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 53 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

oh dude, they promised to be privacy friendly! maybe I'm just too american to believe in promises.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 48 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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[-] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 36 points 3 weeks ago

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...

[-] Baleine@jlai.lu 18 points 3 weeks ago

I'm sure we could invest in all of them and money wouldn't be the problem.

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[-] iglou@programming.dev 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

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.

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[-] berty@feddit.org 34 points 3 weeks ago

Do you need that app to connect to a WiFi network?

[-] sivanataraja@lemmy.world 56 points 3 weeks ago

No, the app is just a map of the hotspots.

[-] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 12 points 3 weeks ago

To add to the other comment, you can see the map here.

[-] Epzillon@lemmy.world 29 points 3 weeks ago

If this does what it says on the box its huge

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 29 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[-] TheProtagonist@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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[-] davidagain@lemmy.world 25 points 3 weeks ago

Leaving the EU is one of the stupidest self harming things we ever did.

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[-] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago

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..

[-] themurphy@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 weeks ago

Because it's border free travel for EU citizens. It's still another country you enter, as of course, there are rules.

They stop you to check. You obviously pass through.

Also, there's still illegal import rules.

[-] possumparty 6 points 3 weeks ago

It's still schengen rules, so if you take a train the likelihood of being stopped at the border is pretty low. Austria may have border agents board the train and verify passports, but that's still pretty uncommon in Europe.

[-] Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Meanwhile Czech carrier cartel:

J. Jonah Jameson laugh meme

BTW free Wi-Fi exploits are overrated with widespread HSTS

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[-] HejMedDig@feddit.dk 6 points 3 weeks ago

I'm sure non-EU visitors will like it

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[-] Hule@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago

Free Wireless ISP, you say?

cheapskate romanian sounds

[-] lmuel@sopuli.xyz 11 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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[-] Mac@mander.xyz 16 points 3 weeks ago

Damn, this is so cool.
We could have had this in the States too, but, well, you all know.

[-] miked@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 weeks ago

This will never be possible in the States. We still have areas with no cellular.

[-] Mac@mander.xyz 13 points 3 weeks ago

Surely that's unrelated to the billions of dollars that the telecom companies stole from the taxpayer after promising to build out infrastructure?

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[-] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago

More Europeans than ever can watch the live-streamed genocide that we've been arming and encouraging!

[-] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Through various deliberately InterPol-managed servers that track your telemetry.

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[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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[-] hmmm@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago

I want to be European so bad.

[-] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 weeks ago

But why an App & not a PWA ?

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[-] Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

So, if I live in the EU, what's stopping me from cancelling my home plan and making the wifi experience worse for everyone?

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 27 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[-] herrvogel@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

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.

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this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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