Sharing an external devices connection with my MacBook so I can avoid using issued Chromebooks.

benstalls · November 30, 2021

I had slipped my way through the schools IT departments iron grip on the networking situation, and gotten the password to the main router. For about two weeks, I had great internet access using it, but myself and everyone I shared the password with were eventually blocked from the Wi-Fi. The Guest Wi-Fi has worked good enough for about a month, but has since become an unreliable mess (No doubt due to the many kids who connect to the Guest Wi-Fi to save on their data.)

I have two main ideas, each with benefits and roadblocks.

1. Use the school-issued Chromebook as a hotspot (it has access to the main wifi), but I cannot find out how to enable such a feature within the Settings menu.

2. Use Androids tether feature or something of the sort to use my unlimited data plan as a Wi-Fi hotspot. This is disabled by my service provider due to the plan we have, so I'm stuck on that too. Maybe there's a way around it?

My teacher gave me a lecture on how it's more about the utility of one object than the value of another. Yeah, she's right, but what she doesn't know is that despite the MacBooks price, I get far more use out of it than any Chromebook has given me in the past 4 years of using one. It has become far more trouble than it is worth to go back to using a Chromebook. That's not her fault, of course, why would she know (or even care) about that?

I'm not a networking wiz yet, so your help is much appreciated. Thank you in advanced!

Arika · November 30, 2021

Instead of trying to sneak around the way you're supposed to do it, how about you just ask the IT department if you can just use your macbook and if they can whitelist it on the main network? If they say yes, good for you, all done. if they say no, tough luck, use the school issued chromebook like you're supposed to.

benstalls · November 30, 2021

13 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Instead of trying to sneak around the way you're supposed to do it, how about you just ask the IT department if you can just use your macbook and if they can whitelist it on the main network? If they say yes, good for you, all done. if they say no, tough luck, use the school issued chromebook like you're supposed to.

Good idea, but I have my doubts. And it's not like we aren't supposed to use our own laptops anyway, we had the option to get a Chromebook in the beginning of the year. I didn't own my MacBook at that point. My biggest problem using the Chromebook is that many apps I use throughout my day are simply not available on them. Besides downloading project descriptions and working from there, having a personal place to work on all assignments seamlessly is something I'm not willing to give up. Desktops are available in the classes with these Windows/MacOS apps, but working on them outside the 45 minute period we're given is impossible.

I also heard the reason teachers and authorized devices have access to a special high-bandwidth connection was due to a failed press conference many years ago. I believe the conference was about the schools advances when using technology. Ironically, their Wi-Fi solution simply wasn't enough that day and the IT guy got a real chewing out for making the school look stupid.

In my eyes, a backdoor of sorts is a must. Is that even a backdoor? I don't know, lol.

TVwazhere · November 30, 2021

13 hours ago, benyboi said:

In my eyes, a backdoor of sorts is a must. Is that even a backdoor? I don't know, lol.

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