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The Daily Tar Heel
Pit Talk

What to do when UNC Wi-Fi crashes in your dorm

Picture this: You’re in your dorm doing some online homework when, BAM! The internet is gone and has been replaced with “Welcome to the UNC Residence Hall Network Protection Center.”

Anyone who has lived in a UNC dorm has probably been through something like this.

I suspect the Most Interesting Man in the World controls the residence hall Wi-Fi.

“I don’t always crash the internet, but when I do, I prefer to crash it at the worst possible time.”It’s literally freezing out, I’m in my penguin pajamas and I am NOT going back out Wi-Fi hunting. Like any desperate person with online homework due by 9 a.m. the next day, the first instinct is to panic.

But there are some things you could do other than smashing your computer through a window. After doing some breathing exercises, you could contact ITS or even find the nearest ResNET staff by going here.

That’s exactly what they WANT you to do. Just in case the 962-HELP line is busy and the resNET person down the hall isn’t home, there is a way to break into the internet. Here’s how you do it:

Step one: Open a new tab. Type in any website of your choosing and crash it.

Step two: You’ve been prompted with the “Welcome to the UNC Residence Hall Network Protection Center” as if you haven’t seen this message 50 times already. Press “Step 2: Scan My Machine.” Don’t even do step one! Just scan away!

Step three: Go back to the tab where you had your work (or whatever website you were looking at before) and refresh the page. If all goes well, you should be back in business.

But there’s a catch.

Your site will only work while the scanner is scanning, meaning you’ll have to push “Scan My Machine” every five minutes or so.

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