Note: I haven’t yet. The following text is not an answer, and might not be worth reading. (Chance: approx. 95%)
Scary wall of text, in the spoiler you go.
Issues
So far i only faced this threat twice (in high school), but managed to avoid it.
- First, I was selected for Erasmus+ international exchange program. But I couldn’t get the answer on how many people per room there would be nor whether there would be shared showers and toilets (like one large per building bathroom).
The school’s psychologist then called me into her office to ask whether I would be capable of socializing with others, and to re-think it, as our group would have to do everything together in representative manner, so I just noped out. - Secondly, we went to some national competition, and were destined to stay at dormitory for 1 night. When I found that out, I said I rather won’t go. When I answered why, I was told that they would arrange for me to have a single room, so that was fine. I just stayed inside there all the time, enjoying my solitude.
At home I live with parents. I don’t have my own room, but subsidize for it with WC (separate from bathroom). Since there’s no power outlets, I’ll take 2 power banks, laptop, USB fan, phone, earphones, and stay there for most of the day.
Unfortunately, I may not find any such alone space over there.
Eating near others is also not quite easy. Usually I’d just wait for the lunchroom to empty, and then go there. Empty table near wall, with adjacent empty tables (excl. diagonally behind). Sometimes this would mean I wouldn’t get to eat, or be late for class, but that wasn’t a problem for me.
At home I just wait until my parents finish.
I can’t stand seeing others, being seen, and hearing others’ chewing if I am to eat.
Stuff to bring
I kinda like to be always ready. My biggest concern is electronics. What all do I bring? Should I take the mini PC with me, or leave it at home with WWAN modem, and use it over Tailscale?
Should I bring RTL-SDR with me, or leave it at home with the remote mini PC and only take RSP1 clone with me?
Which WiFi router to bring? Reliable one, or the one with Wireguard that restarts every 15 minutes and bootloops eventually?
Do I take both laptops for redundancy, or just the usual ThinkPad?
If bringing my CD player, do I use disposable batteries, or also take the AA charger with me?
Do I take my DAB+ radio?
Do I bring the spool of wire that’s been useful for shortwave listening?
What about a printer? I’d only trust dot-matrix for moving around, but they’re expensive AF.
Hell, when I went to that competition, I even took Cisco 871W (SoHo-style) and Cisco 1802 (1RU) routers, although that was mostly as a joke (I did play around with them though).
Yeah, everywhere that has kind of policy, but privacy isn’t exactly part of the school deal.
For the room, yes they can and will enter to check for illegal things and that your room isn’t a complete mess/heath hazard. They’re not supposed to search through your things, i.e opening drawers, closets etc.
It’s not a invasive search, its a quick check to make sure fire alarms haven’t been blocked, the drugs are put away and your not living in 3 years of trash somehow built up in 2 months.
On the internet side of things, unless you’re torrenting, cheating on tests, accessing dark web or taking photos of people in the bathroom, no one will bother your laptop or phone.
Mobile data is better for privacy, but to maintain a hotspot may become impractical due to phone battery or costly long term. I guess try it out to see how it goes.
I mean, that just means business as usual for me. We don’t have internet at home, I just use mobile data. I pay €17/month for 300GB. Used to be €13.
Although, it is that I get what I pay for. It is an MNO, but they only have 1800MHz licenses for now. Recently they won some blocks in other bands in auction, though most of those will only be valid since 2029 except for 2100MHz which will be usable for them since 2026-09-08, and 1500MHz usable immediately, but with basically no support right now (plus the infrastructure takes time to build).
Anyway, what that means is awful coverage (though they pay for 2100MHz and 900MHz with 20GB FUP (unoficially 80GB) from another MNO) and around 5 - 8 Mbps down during the day (they use 1800MHz @ 10MHz (15 in few places)).
I am just weird enough to have the auction press release from Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Postal Services printed out and ready xD.
Anyway, unfortunately, my phone can’t do 5G, where they have 90MHz as far as I recall. Much speed there.
Alternatively, for €20.50, I could get also 300GB, but this time with 3Mbps after that, rather than huge €0.0144/MB at a mature MNO who has LTE-A coverage (2600MHz @ 20+20MHz) there, in which I got 150Mbps down when I was testing it. (Only up to age 28)
However that means giving my details to yet another corporation (I tested the network with unregistered foreign SIM).
Battery-wise, I have a brick of a phone. 85.14Wh battery. My laptop only has a 45Wh one. On full charge with regular hotspot and mobile data usage… and heavier screen time, it does 5 days.