[Hidden-tech] Cushman wifi mystery

[Alan Frank]

Noah,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not clear on how it would help me.  
My workplace already has VPN access; I'm sure they're not going to want 
to host a second one just so that I can access personal websites from 
Cushman.  Or does the VPN have Tor-like capability to tunnel to those 
sites without the need to configure a host?  Or am I misunderstanding 
entirely?

Also, while a solution that I can set up on my own laptop would be 
appreciated, I am hoping to be altruistic and find a way to solve this 
problem for everyone, so each Cushman patron doesn't need to install 
their own copy of third-party software.

--Alan


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Cushman wifi mystery
Date: 2024-11-09 10:45
 From: Noah Paessel <knowuh at gmail.com>
To: Alan Frank <alan at 8wheels.org>

Hi Alan,

I subscribe to a commercial VPN service. I generally have it turned on 
unless I am at home. There are many to choose from, and many blog posts 
compare these commercial offerings. Nord VPN is constantly given high
Marks, also Proton. These are usually affordable.

Lately I have also been using TailScale for more nerdy reasons. Note 
that this solution won’t do what you want at Cushman “out of the box” — 
but you could configure it to do so pretty easily. It’s an amazing 
service especially if you want to be able to access your private 
infrastructure from anywhere. The free tier is very generous.

And boy do I love Cushman ! ❤️

Good luck!

Noah

> On Nov 9, 2024, at 10:16 AM, Alan Frank via Hidden-discuss 
> <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
> 
> Hidden Techers,
> 
> I frequently eat lunch at Cushman Market in Amherst.  For many years, I 
> had no problems with their wifi.  However, in July, I started getting 
> connection errors for most web sites.  For example:
> 
> This site can’t be reached
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/ is unreachable.
> Try running Windows Network Diagnostics.
> ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE
> 
> This site can’t be reached
> Check if there is a typo in webmail.pair.com.
> If spelling is correct, try running Windows Network Diagnostics.
> DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN
> 
> I am able to access Facebook, Google, and Youtube, among others.  I 
> could watch a video on Youtube, so it's not a bandwidth issue.
> 
> I can access https://www.bridgebase.com/, but when I follow the links 
> to log in or to access the VuGraph archive on the same site, it fails.  
> Perhaps the home page is cached?
> 
> Over time, I experienced the same thing on three different Windows 
> laptops and on my phone, when connected to the Cushman wifi.  None of 
> the devices had any trouble connecting to any of the web sites from 
> home or from other public wifi networks.  I also spoke with another 
> Cushman customer.  He said that he didn't have any trouble, though when 
> he tried then to access washingtonpost.com, he got the same message.  
> At my request, he also tried fidelity.com--another one that is 
> unreachable for me--and got a basic HTML page, not the normal rich home 
> page.
> 
> I reached out to the owner of Cushman.  She said that she didn't have 
> any problems with those sites, that she wasn't intentionally blocking 
> any of them, and that she could access them from her device; I'm not 
> sure which sites specifically she was able to reach and I don't have 
> direct knowledge that she was using the same network.
> 
> One idea I had was to tunnel through my work VPN to a remote desktop, 
> though at best that will work only until I retire in a few years.  
> There are a couple of ways to do that.  One is through a URL, but of 
> course I can't access that.  Another is to use Windows App.  When I 
> tried installing it while at Cushman, Microsoft Store said that I 
> wasn't connected to the internet, though of course I was--I can 
> navigate the store itself just fine.  I installed it later from home 
> and will try it out the next time I'm at the cafe, which at this point 
> may not be for a while.
> 
> I'd appreciate any suggestions for what the owner or I can do to 
> investigate or resolve this issue.
> 
> --Alan
> _______________________________________________
> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page: http://www.hidden-tech.net
> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
> 
> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion 
> list.
> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members