Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 April 19

= April 19 =

Regarding Facebook's People You May Know List
Hello everyone, I have a question about the People You May Know List of Facebook. Facebook says, "People You May Know are people on Facebook that you might know. We show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors." Notice the last three words of their statement. I've read some stories online from people about coincidences and occurrences that have happened to them that have caused them to believe that the People You May Know feature also shows people who have viewed your profile many times, especially when no such connections or mutual friends is apparent. I have my own personal suspicions in my case, but that's for outside the Reference Desk. Some online articles like this one and this one claim that possibly one of the ways to implicitly find out (In LinkedIn, it is more explicit people say) who has probably looked at your profile multiple times or is stalking you is if you look at your friend suggestions and see If you see someone who does not share any mutual friends with you. Is there any shred of truth to this? Willminator (talk) 05:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I think one of the major factors is location. They keep sending me the same list of "people I may know", apparently based only on that. StuRat (talk) 08:33, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but what if any of those people that appear in the list of "people you may know" clicked on your profile multiple times? Will that really impact the list in any way, at least a little bit? Willminator (talk) 00:52, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I think it's possible that she may have looked at your profile. Anything is possible. There is this girl I talked with the other day. I found her Facebook page the other day. These days, sometimes she is in my People You May Know list, but she sometimes disappears when I refresh while all the other suggestions are there and the order is the same. Weird.... 131.247.244.23 (talk) 22:21, 21 April 2015 (UTC)


 * ( WP:OR - FB has creeped me out with a few choice individuals that I "may know" - I do indeed know them. I don't have linked in, I've never interacted with them online in any manner, and they live ~1000 miles away. I don't have their numbers in my phonebook on my phone. I did call/text them a few times a few years ago... make of that what you will. I tried to research the topic when it came up for me, but I quickly realized that, short of a court order, nobody but FB knows with certainty what kind of data they are scraping from you. You'll find lots of speculation, but very few reliable sources. ) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:47, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:OR: one of the most effective ways to make data-surveillance companies cease aggregating your data is to convince them that you are in fact a spambot. You can behave like a spambot by sending spam-like mail, hopping IP addresses, using abnormal user-clients, sending malformed HTTP requests, extensively spidering web pages, and so on.  Once you are positively identified as a bot, these large-scale surveillance services significantly reduce their efforts to aggregate your personal data.  Human friends and acquaintances will easily recognize you by name, but algorithmic aggregators will associate your name and persona with a blacklisted spambot!  Nimur (talk) 17:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

School Dorm Wifi Won't Allow Ethernet via Router?
I am living in a US university dorm room with an ethernet port in my room. I can plug in my own router and broadcast my own wifi signal, which works perfectly. However, when I connect an ethernet cable from my router to a laptop, the ethernet connection does not work, and the previously working wifi signal also immediately stops working. Is this some setting that the school network admins have set up? Or could it be something wrong with my router? Acceptable (talk) 20:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Have you tried a different ethernet cable, or tried that cable direct from the room port (just in case a fault is shorting out the router signal)?   D b f i r s   20:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * What operating system and version are you using on your laptop? Jc3s5h (talk) 23:29, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I've tried the eternet cable in other capacities and can confirm that it works. I tried connecting my laptop directly to the eternet outlet in my room (without a router inbetween) an interestingly, it also does not work. I get the school's network name come up, but it says "Limited connection" in my Windows networks icon. Acceptable (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Presuming Windows 7/8, try resetting the TCP/IP stack. --  Gadget850talk 23:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * What operating system and version are you using on your laptop? Is there any chance someone edited the properties of the ethernet port on your laptop? (It is possible to edit the properties of the ethernet port separately from the wifi connection, so one could be messed up and not the other.) I've noticed with my laptop if I plug it into the ethernet, it does not attempt to make a wifi connection. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:41, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Your university may be registering the MAC address of whatever device was first connected, then ignoring any other devices. If your WiFi router is functioning as an access point and switch, then it would pass your laptop's wireless connection directly to the wall Ethernet port, your laptop's wireless MAC address would be the first device that got connected, and all other devices would be ignored. If this is what is happening, you may need to contact your university technical support to clear the registered device.
 * You should also confirm your university allows you to connect a router to the Ethernet port in your room. If a router is allowed, make sure your router is actually functioning as a router (not as a switch and access point), and be sure to connect the cable from the wall to the WAN port on the router.--Bavi H (talk) 04:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * A lot depends what the OP means by "works perfectly". To me, an AP is not working perfectly if it can only serve one wireless device. And in the modern world, it wouldn't be surprising to have more than one wireless device per person either. So unless the AP is serving as a NAT router for the wifi component but not the ethernet part, the wifi would probably have noticable problems. Nil Einne (talk) 15:21, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm running both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1; both laptops have the same type of problem. I'm not sure what the difference between an AP and a router is, but I have a dlink router that I basically plug into the eternet port and it broadcasts a wireless signal that multiple of my devices are able to connect to. All devices have simultaneous internet access. Acceptable (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * You might get quicker help from your university tech support. But I am interested in knowing what the final cause was, if possible.
 * By access point, I was trying to describe a "switch with wireless". Here's the main difference between a router and a switch:
 * When a router is connected to a WAN provider, the WAN provider only sees one device -- the router's WAN port. The router gets one WAN IP address from the WAN provider and shares it among all of the LAN devices. Each LAN device gets its own LAN IP address from the router.
 * When a switch is connected to a WAN provider, the WAN provider can see all of the devices connected to the switch. If the WAN provider allows it, then all of the devices connected to the switch get would their own WAN IP addresses. However, a WAN provider will usually only want to provide one WAN IP address. To enforce this, the provider detects the MAC address (a network device unique ID) of the first device that connects and "registers" that device. If any other device is connected, a different MAC address is detected, and its traffic is ignored. This kind of "ignoring" can cause the "limited connection" message.
 * If the Ethernet cable from the wall was ever connected to a LAN port on the router, then it could have behaved like a switch. (The LAN ports on a router form their own switch.)
 * If MAC registration is causing the problem, you probably need to contact your university tech support for help clearing the registration.
 * Possible advanced test: Your router may have a way to change its WAN MAC address. On the laptop that originally got a working wireless connection, find the wireless MAC address. Log into your router and enter that same MAC address as the router's WAN MAC address. Then see if the router gets a WAN IP address. If this works, this suggests the WAN provider has the laptop's wireless MAC address registered. You could keep your router set up this way in your dorm room, then reset the router WAN MAC address when you leave the dorm room. But it may be easier to call for help getting the registration cleared.
 * --Bavi H (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It could very well be that a special cable is required for ethernet connections (your university's tech support would have the answer) Palmtree5551 (talk) 21:16, 21 April 2015 (UTC)