[A pay-as-you-go plan] is cheap, but effectively worthless for anything other than a rare quick phone call or text message
I use it for exactly that. Longer voice calls wait until I arrive at home, where we have a phone on a different plan with unlimited minutes and zero texts. Longer text conversations wait until I arrive at home or at a hotspot, where I use Internet-based text chat or email.
and if it's actually a smartphone, then it's a waste of resources altogether.
I disagree. Even without cellular data, my Android phone is no more "a waste of resources" than an iPod touch. On this 5-inch tablet, I can still access locally stored information anywhere and connect to the Internet at any hotspot.
If you carry a device for emergencies only
I carry it not only for emergencies but also for the sort of urgencies for which one would have used a payphone in previous decades. The most common is calling home to arrange a ride after the city buses have stopped running for the night or for the weekend.
It'd change from 10 cents for the first text and 10 cents for each additional text to $32 for the first text and 0 cents for each additional text. I'd have to send or receive 320 texts, minutes, or a combination thereof each month in order for that to be a win. Currently I do not.
SMS also provides a fallback if your auth token goes poof...and if you're a PAYG cell user and want the security then you spend the 10c on an SMS or two.
Is that 10 cents just to set it up, or is it also 10 cents every time I log in?
What about just deleting your phone number from your Twitter account? Then it can't send you texts, right? Go ahead, but then you can no longer use the 3rd-party authenticator app.
Does Google also disable TOTP access after you have removed your phone number?
I pay $35/month and that includes unlimited USA talk and text with my limited data. Maybe you need to get another carrier. Or at least another plan.
I currently pay $3 per month to T-Mobile and get 30 minutes of USA talk, 30 USA texts, or a combination thereof per month, and zero cellular data. Thus the price difference between my pay-as-you-go plan and your unlimited plan is $32 per month or $384 per year. I'm interested to read a good case for how 2FA would be worth that much to me.
Such a cabin could very well have a TV for streaming shows from a local server (like Plex), an old-fashioned DVD/Bluray player, OTA broadcasts, Satellite TV, etc.
You've found not just one but four successful workarounds for a cellular ISP's throttling of streaming video. Use them.
You are correct that Google publishes a TOTP client called Google Authenticator. But when I installed Google Authenticator, I discovered that Google is unwilling to offer TOTP authentication unless the account holder has already linked a phone on a supported carrier. From "Install Google Authenticator":
To set this up, first you need to complete SMS/Voice setup. Then, follow the directions for your type of device explained below.
The main reason that I haven't enabled 2-factor on my account is that U.S. cellular carriers charge not only for sent messages but also for received messages. T-Mobile, for example, charges its pay-as-you-go customers 10 cents to send and 10 cents to receive. And no, Google and Twitter don't allow use of a FIDO U2F key or a TOTP client without also having a mobile phone number set up.
I only watch TV about 2 hours a day, on average [...] If one service is getting 25mpbs, I expect all other services to be comparable.
Being able to peak at 25 Mbps for 30 seconds to download a 75 MB file doesn't put the same (amortized) load on cell towers as sustaining 25 Mbps for two hours. If you choose to live where fiber, cable, and DSL are unavailable, you can stream SD or rent BD.
You may have an XY problem here. You say want to stream in HD, but you probably just want to watch in HD. One workaround is to install a BD player in your camper or bring one with you to your hotel room. Another is to use a video service that allows downloading in advance for later play while offline and do so while connected to fiber, cable, or DSL. Or what makes those impractical for the use cases you describe?
It isn't Apple's job to determine if the data is valid or not. That's the user's job.
that type of logic results in Trump, unfortunately.
Don't be such a negative covfefe.
Google defines covfefe as "the treatment of an issue by the media." Thus negative news gets negative covfefe, and positive news gets positive covfefe. When an undereducated electorate chooses a President that makes the sorts of policy decisions that have in the past produced undesirable results for a country, you bet there will be negative covfefe from reputable journalistic outlets.
And just as an undereducated electorate can misinterpret information presented by the media about a candidate's attitude during an election, undereducated users can misinterpret data presented by an application on a device. Both can have harmful side effects.
My best guess is that there are too few nationwide cellular carriers to trigger a price war for both wholesale (to MVNOs) and retail cellular service, yet there are enough carriers not to trigger either anti-cartel provisions of competition law or federal regulation of prices.
I have unlimited data and an MHL-HDMI interface so I can play videos on a large TV using my phone, you insensitive clod.
If you are casting to a large TV, then the cellular carrier probably reasons that you ought to be using the fiber or cable Internet connection to which your household subscribes, not the more limited spectrum over which cellular service is provided.
How do you assure visitors of the several websites you run that the markup, stylesheets, images, fonts, and possibly scripts on your site have not been modified in transit by an intercepting proxy between your server and the viewer's machine?
No standard user will recognize a single word of what you just said, or why any of it could be a risk to them.
That's because I phrased that particular sentence for you, not for non-technical visitors. Phrased for them, it may read as follows:
How do you assure a visitor that the visitor's ISP isn't adding advertisements or false information to your page on its way to the visitor's computer or phone?
Users don't care if shit gets modified in transit.
That used to be the case before accusations of "fake news" made the national news.
Anonymous Coward is trying to say that despite Apple's user base not being the largest, it has been successful at making a large profit from a smaller, richer user base. In some years, it has earned over 90 percent of all smartphone profit. Thus despite a smaller number of people using Safari, these users on the whole make more purchases in larger amounts.
I was saying specifically that browsers when they see '192.168.' or 'example.local' in https,, they should treat things differently, which would be home user.
In this case, how can the browser tell home user from malicious coffee shop user?
Slashdot Mirror
Which carrier might that happen to be?
If you recorded shows last night on your DVR, you can transfer them to your phone over your local area network before you leave.
[A pay-as-you-go plan] is cheap, but effectively worthless for anything other than a rare quick phone call or text message
I use it for exactly that. Longer voice calls wait until I arrive at home, where we have a phone on a different plan with unlimited minutes and zero texts. Longer text conversations wait until I arrive at home or at a hotspot, where I use Internet-based text chat or email.
and if it's actually a smartphone, then it's a waste of resources altogether.
I disagree. Even without cellular data, my Android phone is no more "a waste of resources" than an iPod touch. On this 5-inch tablet, I can still access locally stored information anywhere and connect to the Internet at any hotspot.
If you carry a device for emergencies only
I carry it not only for emergencies but also for the sort of urgencies for which one would have used a payphone in previous decades. The most common is calling home to arrange a ride after the city buses have stopped running for the night or for the weekend.
Why do you need to buy a domain to create your own VPN?
To obtain a certificate for its web-based configuration interface, for one thing.
Who the hell pays for texts in 2018?
Someone who cut his phone bill by over a hundred dollars a year by downgrading from an unlimited plan to a pay-as-you-go plan.
It'd change from 10 cents for the first text and 10 cents for each additional text to $32 for the first text and 0 cents for each additional text. I'd have to send or receive 320 texts, minutes, or a combination thereof each month in order for that to be a win. Currently I do not.
SMS also provides a fallback if your auth token goes poof...and if you're a PAYG cell user and want the security then you spend the 10c on an SMS or two.
Is that 10 cents just to set it up, or is it also 10 cents every time I log in?
You have to add a mobile number to set up FIDO U2F key or a TOTP client but you can just remove it right after. IDK why they do it that way.
Last I checked, removing your mobile number from your account had the side effect of also removing FIDO U2F or TOTP from your account. At least Twitter does that. From "Twitter's 2-factor authentication has a serious problem" by Jack Morse:
Does Google also disable TOTP access after you have removed your phone number?
I pay $35/month and that includes unlimited USA talk and text with my limited data. Maybe you need to get another carrier. Or at least another plan.
I currently pay $3 per month to T-Mobile and get 30 minutes of USA talk, 30 USA texts, or a combination thereof per month, and zero cellular data. Thus the price difference between my pay-as-you-go plan and your unlimited plan is $32 per month or $384 per year. I'm interested to read a good case for how 2FA would be worth that much to me.
I can use my phone to stream recently recorded shows from my TiVo for viewing.
Can't you transfer episodes that you had recorded on your DVR from your DVR to your phone over your WLAN before you leave the house?
Such a cabin could very well have a TV for streaming shows from a local server (like Plex), an old-fashioned DVD/Bluray player, OTA broadcasts, Satellite TV, etc.
You've found not just one but four successful workarounds for a cellular ISP's throttling of streaming video. Use them.
You don't need to give then your phone number, you can use the Google Authenticator app to generate the one time pass on your device.
As I wrote in my reply to DontBeAMoran, you can't set up TOTP until you've set up SMS.
You are correct that Google publishes a TOTP client called Google Authenticator. But when I installed Google Authenticator, I discovered that Google is unwilling to offer TOTP authentication unless the account holder has already linked a phone on a supported carrier. From "Install Google Authenticator":
The main reason that I haven't enabled 2-factor on my account is that U.S. cellular carriers charge not only for sent messages but also for received messages. T-Mobile, for example, charges its pay-as-you-go customers 10 cents to send and 10 cents to receive. And no, Google and Twitter don't allow use of a FIDO U2F key or a TOTP client without also having a mobile phone number set up.
I only watch TV about 2 hours a day, on average [...] If one service is getting 25mpbs, I expect all other services to be comparable.
Being able to peak at 25 Mbps for 30 seconds to download a 75 MB file doesn't put the same (amortized) load on cell towers as sustaining 25 Mbps for two hours. If you choose to live where fiber, cable, and DSL are unavailable, you can stream SD or rent BD.
You may have an XY problem here. You say want to stream in HD, but you probably just want to watch in HD. One workaround is to install a BD player in your camper or bring one with you to your hotel room. Another is to use a video service that allows downloading in advance for later play while offline and do so while connected to fiber, cable, or DSL. Or what makes those impractical for the use cases you describe?
If neither the fiber company nor the cable company nor the DSL company serves your area, use Blu-ray instead of streaming.
covfefe (KUV-rij)
It isn't Apple's job to determine if the data is valid or not. That's the user's job.
that type of logic results in Trump, unfortunately.
Don't be such a negative covfefe.
Google defines covfefe as "the treatment of an issue by the media." Thus negative news gets negative covfefe, and positive news gets positive covfefe. When an undereducated electorate chooses a President that makes the sorts of policy decisions that have in the past produced undesirable results for a country, you bet there will be negative covfefe from reputable journalistic outlets.
And just as an undereducated electorate can misinterpret information presented by the media about a candidate's attitude during an election, undereducated users can misinterpret data presented by an application on a device. Both can have harmful side effects.
How come data plans in the US are so shitty?
My best guess is that there are too few nationwide cellular carriers to trigger a price war for both wholesale (to MVNOs) and retail cellular service, yet there are enough carriers not to trigger either anti-cartel provisions of competition law or federal regulation of prices.
You can very well be mirroring that mobile screen to something larger where you will feel that it matters.
Where might this larger screen happen to be where there is no Wi-Fi?
I have unlimited data and an MHL-HDMI interface so I can play videos on a large TV using my phone, you insensitive clod.
If you are casting to a large TV, then the cellular carrier probably reasons that you ought to be using the fiber or cable Internet connection to which your household subscribes, not the more limited spectrum over which cellular service is provided.
If every user of the Internet were to buy a domain name and VPS hosting for a VPN for his personal use, how much would that cost per year?
How do you assure visitors of the several websites you run that the markup, stylesheets, images, fonts, and possibly scripts on your site have not been modified in transit by an intercepting proxy between your server and the viewer's machine?
No standard user will recognize a single word of what you just said, or why any of it could be a risk to them.
That's because I phrased that particular sentence for you, not for non-technical visitors. Phrased for them, it may read as follows:
How do you assure a visitor that the visitor's ISP isn't adding advertisements or false information to your page on its way to the visitor's computer or phone?
Users don't care if shit gets modified in transit.
That used to be the case before accusations of "fake news" made the national news.
Anonymous Coward is trying to say that despite Apple's user base not being the largest, it has been successful at making a large profit from a smaller, richer user base. In some years, it has earned over 90 percent of all smartphone profit. Thus despite a smaller number of people using Safari, these users on the whole make more purchases in larger amounts.
I was saying specifically that browsers when they see '192.168.' or 'example.local' in https,, they should treat things differently, which would be home user.
In this case, how can the browser tell home user from malicious coffee shop user?