Travel Router

[longterm]

I forgot to mention this: a simple way to share an Internet connection is to use a Mac and share the Internet connection. In System Preferences, it's easily found and enabled, although I've never found the need to enable it.

 

This isn't available on an iPhone, but it's also a function on Windows machines as well, Power User settings.

[Frisky070802]

2 hours ago, longterm said:

It's a simple matter to enable VNC if one is concerned about security in places like hotels, airports, and elsewhere; I have Nord VNC on my iPhone & laptop, and enable it when I feel the need.

 

Perhaps I'm being overly trusting, but I don't consider Viking passengers the types who might be looking to hack into one of my devices. 🙂

 

I think you mean VPN? 

[Frisky070802]

2 hours ago, longterm said:

It's doable, but not with the hotspot feature--I haven't tried it, but I've read articles about how to go about it. Not something I would want to fool with though. It has to do with spoofing a MAC address, and more involved than I'll go into here.

Considering the ease of turning wifi on and off on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, it's simple enough to move a connection around as needed, and that's how I've done it on cruises for years.

Also, a ship has a finite pipe through which all passengers' Internet travels; for someone to cheat the system and use more devices than are allowed is simply bad form. 

As to travel routers--they're convenient, I suppose, but I already carry enough electronics as it is, and wifi management these days is a simple one-click process.

I assume that the fixed pipe per connection applies to what talks to the ship. Just because you have 3 clients going through a router doesn’t mean the router gets served a higher bandwidth than you would see on your laptop or tablet.

[longterm]

1 hour ago, Frisky070802 said:

I assume that the fixed pipe per connection applies to what talks to the ship. Just because you have 3 clients going through a router doesn’t mean the router gets served a higher bandwidth than you would see on your laptop or tablet.

No, that's not what I was trying to say, but perhaps I wasn't clear.

The pipe's size is essentially fixed, so if each passenger on a cruise were to circumvent the rules and use multiple devices, using up more bandwidth than Viking intended, it would adversely affect all the other passengers. 
 

On the other hand, if it's just a question of convenience, and someone wants to have all their devices connected to wifi, even though they only use one at a time, then that wouldn't cause any problems... but Viking has its rules.

[longterm]

1 hour ago, Frisky070802 said:

I think you mean VPN? 

Yes, that's what I meant... duh! 🙂

 

[Frisky070802]

36 minutes ago, longterm said:

No, that's not what I was trying to say, but perhaps I wasn't clear.

The pipe's size is essentially fixed, so if each passenger on a cruise were to circumvent the rules and use multiple devices, using up more bandwidth than Viking intended, it would adversely affect all the other passengers. 
 

On the other hand, if it's just a question of convenience, and someone wants to have all their devices connected to wifi, even though they only use one at a time, then that wouldn't cause any problems... but Viking has its rules.

The real question is, do they rely on the 2 devices per person as a way of capping traffic, or do they serve each device some max bandwidth? And of course they say never to stream over wifi. 
 

so yes, the pipe to the satellite is fixed, but that is separate from the question of sharing an access point…. It doesn’t mean necessarily that multiple devices on a router will get more data. Maybe? 

[Mike07]

2 hours ago, Frisky070802 said:

The real question is, do they rely on the 2 devices per person as a way of capping traffic, or do they serve each device some max bandwidth? And of course they say never to stream over wifi. 
 

so yes, the pipe to the satellite is fixed, but that is separate from the question of sharing an access point…. It doesn’t mean necessarily that multiple devices on a router will get more data. Maybe? 

 

 

My best guess is that people will connect anything and everything --- laptop, tablet, phone, etc. --- to a network and think it's like a light bulb, if they're not using it, no data is going to it. Nowadays, devices are sending so much data up to the motherships and clouds with the apps that you can probably track realistic and quantitative performance degradation.

 

 

[Mike07]

7 hours ago, longterm said:

It's a simple matter to enable VNC if one is concerned about security in places like hotels, airports, and elsewhere; I have Nord VNC on my iPhone & laptop, and enable it when I feel the need.

 

Perhaps I'm being overly trusting, but I don't consider Viking passengers the types who might be looking to hack into one of my devices. 🙂

 

 

 

VPNs are largely overrated, because ever since the inception of a secure connection, whether it be thru SSH, HTTPS or effectively any public/private crypto logic key exchange, the assumption is made that somebody else is listening/capturing the data going in an out.

 

You can 100% packet capture everything coming off of my phone --- with or without a VPN --- and I wouldn't care. VPN adds a second layer of encryption, but you're dealing with encryption algorithms already that are really sophisticated.

 

If VPNs make anybody feel better, then by all means use them. But, I would say by in large nobody really needs one.

 

There was one port in Norway that had "Free public WiFi", but it wanted you to download an app to access. Nope, I would not ever do that.

[Mike07]

3 hours ago, longterm said:

The pipe's size is essentially fixed, so if each passenger on a cruise were to circumvent the rules and use multiple devices, using up more bandwidth than Viking intended, it would adversely affect all the other passengers. 
 

 

 

That is 100% why Viking, and many cruise lines, do that. Often times, cruise lines also want to sell you packages that allow you to connect more devices.

 

But it's like the old incandescent light bulbs if yesteryear.... If half of a cruise ship keeps one on and doesn't need it, the electricity adds up.

Edited April 15 by Mike07

[longterm]

10 minutes ago, Mike07 said:

VPNs are largely overrated, because ever since the inception of a secure connection, whether it be thru SSH, HTTPS or effectively any public/private crypto logic key exchange, the assumption is made that somebody else is listening/capturing the data going in an out.

...

 

If VPNs make anybody feel better, then by all means use them. But, I would say by in large nobody really needs one.

I agree 100%. I almost never use a VPN these days, except when I need to do business with a site that won't allow connection from a foreign country.