You hunt down the offending rogue SSID and eject the offender. It doesn't take much to triangulate the physical location... a couple of security guys carrying smartphones loaded with an app like this, and the rest is pretty simple.

What you do not do is play amateur electronic warfare (one, you'll likely lose that battle, and two, you run the risk of breaking stuff.)

...this is new?

Look up Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie, etc etc.

Dunno if we "pray" to them - it's just that most folks are tech-ignorant and are preyed upon because of that. I noticed crap like TFA first-hand.

I was at a Marriott in ATL (okay, Alpharetta) in late 2013, discovered crap like this (yet they were more than happy to charge $14.99/day for access to their SSID), and promptly decided to change hotels after the 2nd day (I was too busy to swing it on day one). I spent the rest of the week (and my employer's money) elsewhere. I specifically mentioned the wifi shenanigans as a reason why I changed rooms (especially since the La Quinta down the street was far less expensive, the hotspot worked perfectly, and atop that, their wifi was free of charge.) Reimbursement was not a problem after I explained why, and the company I worked for at the time decided to take their future business elsewhere (as a tech company, network access ranks as pretty damned important...)

Vote with your dollars, and even if traveling on business, be damned certain that your employer is aware of why you're doing so, which translates into less money for the offenders. It won't be fast, it won't be easy, and inertia allows asshat corporations to continue their asshattery for awhile, but if the issue is important and broadcast widely enough, withholding patronage does indeed work.

The profits are gathered or lost by a lot of folks:

* The largest consumers of petroleum such as airlines and other transportation companies stand to make or lose millions of dollars by a penny's change in prices.
* Oil companies obviously see a huge chunk of this, natch.
* Commodity traders

Not seeing too many of them (outside of Warren Buffett and his trains) who are friends of the president and would stand to benefit or lose anything significant from this. Then again, there is the Keystone XL pipeline... a crippled oil shale industry won't ship as much oil, which means that Mr. Buffett would have a stronger argument to continue shipping that oil on his rail lines.

need to fix a goof: higher gas prices are beneficial to the Shale Oil industry, not higher taxes.

...what AC sibling said, and summarized for visibility: Federal gasoline taxes are a fixed amount per gallon, not a percentage of retail. Gas can be $0.50/gallon or $50.00/gallon, and the feds will take in the same amount based on actual consumption.

Higher gasoline taxes are however beneficial to the Oil Shale industry, which OPEC is currently trying to damage by creating the current glut.

I think it will however backfire on them as Russia is experiencing collateral damage from this, as is Venezuela, Canada, and other economies which rely on oil exports for a significant percentage of their wealth.

I don't see too much of an impact here in the US (outside of Texas and North Dakota), and what damage does occur may be offset by lower prices overall brought by the cheaper fuel/transportation costs.

I also doubt that Obama is specifically doing this to lash out at the oil industry, so much as doing it to satisfy his particular ideological and supporters' demands/desires as regards fossil fuels.

I can see the benefit: It's one thing to use virtual 'hands' with a 3D mesh on a two-dimensional screen, but if you're the guy who has to get in there with your hands and actually do the job? A couple of practice runs on a tactile 3D model of the real thing would make the job a hell of a lot easier when it comes time to actually do it.

If I were the patient, and it were the inside of my skull that they were getting all handsy with, I'd damned well insist on it.

Cool - now can they turn a skull MRI of some guy I dislike, and turn it into a goblet?

*That* would be hilarious (okay, maybe I'm really odd for wanting to drink from the skulls of my enemies, even if only on a semi-metaphorical level, but...)

Allow me to disabuse you of that notion. The largest Christian denomination on the planet (Roman Catholicism, with ~1.4 billion adherents) not only has no problems at all with evolution, but has contributed to it by such means as originally theorizing what is now known as the Big Bang and contributing to the origins of what we know as genetics

Windows 7 came out to the public in October of 2009 - just 5 years and 3 months ago.

Unless you're running a hacked MSDN beta copy or you work for Microsoft, your statement cannot possibly be true.

I never said they shouldn't have the right to politically express themselves. Problem is, when a celebrity scientist spews politics, it clouds the promotion of science, and often diminishes their reputation and standing (outside of the political/ideological kool-aid parties, that is).

They have the perfect right to make political whores of themselves, but they should have enough responsibility to not do so.

I agree.

"Troll"

Damn - did a lot of MCSE's get bored and mod points today? Can't even respectfully disagree?

Bill Nye has been known to wander off into nutter territory on occasion, lumping all religious folks into the same category as the literal-6,000-year-old-Earth nutters that he opposes.

Theories aside, you have a solid point.

Science celebrities (DeGrasse-Tyson, Sagan, etc) would be awesome proponents of science... if they would stop yapping politics. Seriously, scientific discovery and history are wonderful things. Enticing folks into wanting to know more about our world and universe is an awesome thing.

But... when you have some scientist-turned-celebrity yammering on and on and on about some purely political viewpoint (and worse, misrepresenting opposing ones and falling victim to even the most basic of logical fallacies), then it sucks.

A good example of a science celeb? Dr. Michio Kaku. Dude sticks to science for the most part, and doesn't try to recruit political acolytes to gain points, controversy, or notoriety.