Lumifer comments on Open Thread: March 4 - 10 - Less Wrong
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I want to use computers without being exposed to the internet. I haven't been able to find a lot of practical information about this. I would appreciate the LessWrong hivemind's thoughts on this matter.
My current plan is something like have no internet access at home, record internet tasks on a todo list, go to a library once per week and do them (sample tasks include downloading fanfic reading material for the week, sending e-mails, downloading new versions of programs, checking my bank accounts, etc...). Lack of torrents is something I'll just have to live with. I'm also thinking of switching my phone to a Nokia 106, which has no internet access. There's a neat trick where you can get e-mails as text messages, which should be enough to deal with emergencies. I'll make sure to avoid careers which involve prolonged interaction with internet-capable machines, such as programming. Is teaching math safe?
I dread the day when wireless internet becomes omnipresent. It's a horrible, horrible supertimulus.
Why is this a problem? Drip some epoxy into your physical Ethernet port, break off the Wi-Fi antenna, delete the network drivers from your system...
I have no talent for hardware modification, so I'd either have to find some way to get good at it or pay someone to do it for me. That said, I have also considered this (removing Wi-Fi antennas before purchase was one of the few practical suggestions I found while trying to read up on this topic). Right now it seems like my current plan is easier, but I am certainly willing to experiment with many variations on the basic theme if my initial approach doesn't work.
You only need to break things. Breaking stuff is much easier than general-purpose hardware modification :-)
Deleting the network drivers, though, is a filesystem operation and will cut off your machine from the 'net quite effectively.