How to easily and completely disable/enable WLAN (so it cannot be turned on again while travelling)?

Solution 1:

Discussions of willpower aside, my research suggests that the file you need to copy to the USB stick and later restore is /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext. This will require a reboot to take effect.

Before removing any system files, be sure you have a working bootable backup of your system and time on hand to restore things should anything go wrong. I have not tested this solution on my system and am not willing to do so.

Solution 2:

I've answered similar questions before, so I'll just link to those for reference and provide a TL;DR here

"Anything you can do or install or configure in order to produce a technical block to stop you running these apps, can also be undone", so the only real answer is to work on your will power.

The best you can hope is to try to make it more hassle than it's worth to mess around instead. Try to create a new user account without any WIFI passwords stored etc, and force yourself to have to log out or switch users to procrastinate. This isn't perfect, and it probably won't work.

As you say, you know the passwords by heart, so perhaps you will have to do something like set a static IP that won't route over the WIFI even if you connect because it will be different from the DHCP details you would normally be given, but obviously, as a technical measure, even this can be undone.

If this is a big big problem, you might need a combination of techncial workarounds that are backed up by another person you trust maintaining the administrator passwords to stop you from being able to undo the blocks put in place.