>
>> The owner of the coffee shop is out of town but will return this evening,
>> and he is furious. The >>defective WiFi provided by 19CL is costing him a
>> lot of business as the place is a popular hangout for >>students from three
>> colleges, and without WiFi access they are forced to go elsewhere.
>
>
>I should imagine it did. Poor chap!
>
I dislike conspiracy theories and even more so conspiracy theorists. But
I do have a mild sense of paranoia when it comes to cyberpunks, because they
are out to fool you all of the time. So, I came up with my own conspiracy
theory and took it for a test drive.
First, a little history. Back in September, 19CL goaded the owner of this
coffee shop into buying a New! Improved! WiFi hub. I immediately lost all
internet access. They tried to buffalo me into thinking that my laptop was at
fault, and that did not fly. While the owner was trying to reconfigure the hub
with a long distance 19CL tech, I did a little diagnostic of my own and found
that the new hub did not include two handshake protocols that were needed for
older chipsets. I bought a USB wireless adapter and everything worked fine
until two days ago, when they remotely reconfigured the hub.
I went over to another coffee shop this morning where I knew I would have
internet access. When I asked the barista who provided their WiFi, a
psychiatric hospital escapee shoved his iPhone into my face and insisted that
it would solve all my problems. He came close to becoming a pot roast.
Later I went out for my daily bike ride, clearing away my frustration and
getting me to thinking clearly. I remembered the 19CL deception of last
September and said to myself: "Self," (that's how I talk to my self) "what are
the chances that they're doing it again? They fooled everyone once before, so
they have reason to believe that they can do it again." It was de ja vu all
over again.
Returning home, I got out the Win7/IE9/Firefox hard drive that came with
this laptop, installed it, then installed the software for the USB wireless
adapter. Went back to the coffee shop, and here I am enjoying full internet
access once again.
Here's what they did: When 19CL remotely reconfigured the WiFi hub two
days ago, they set it up to deny access to any laptop that was using an
operating system prior to Win7 or that was using a browser prior to IE9, then
telling the user that the 19CL equipment was working fine and that the user was
entirely at fault. Uh-huh!
They almost had me fooled once before, but they didn't fool me this time.
Where can I buy a flame thrower?
Chris
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
- Hunter S. Thompson
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