A lab instruction for city assessors mentions rfkill blocking. What should they understand?

rfkill soft and hard blocks can disable Wi-Fi (and other) radios even when the driver module is loaded and the USB adapter enumerates correctly. City assessors who see a present interface that will not transmit or enter usable RF states should check rfkill before blaming aircrack-ng. Soft blocks are usually software toggles; hard blocks often reflect a hardware kill switch or firmware-enforced disable. Understanding rfkill prevents wasted time during municipal lab setup when the radio is simply blocked. Saying rfkill only mutes speakers and has no effect on Wi-Fi fails by concept: rfkill is specifically about radio kill switches, not audio mute. Claiming rfkill settings are ignored once airodump-ng starts fails by concept: a blocked radio will not deliver a healthy capture path regardless of which suite binary you launch. Asserting hard rfkill blocks clear automatically by opening a web browser fails by concept: browsing does not clear hardware radio kills; explicit unblock or physical switch action is required. Exam caveat: unblocking radios must still respect host policy—some civic laptops intentionally hard-kill Wi-Fi in secure facilities; do not override physical policy controls outside RoE. Operational check: run rfkill list before monitor setup, clear authorized soft blocks, verify any hard-block switch position, confirm the municipal adapter leaves the blocked state, then proceed to create the monitor interface.