3 ms·

This is pretty simple and I don't think it's nefarious. Android WiFi is used for two purposes, networking and location. The main WiFi switch toggles the network

by guelo 9y ago

This is pretty simple and I don't think it's nefarious. Android WiFi is used for two purposes, networking and location. The main WiFi switch toggles the networking function and the main location switch toggles its location fuction as well as other location providers such as GPS and cellular location. If you want the main WiFi toggle to also affect its location function then that's what the "Always allow scanning" setting is for.

carapace 9y ago
I downvoted you for trivializing (or missing) the problem.
- infogulch 9y ago
  I disagree, gp's is a perfectly valid level headed response. It has been known for quite some time that WiFi is used to make the location service more accurate. Think of it from the typical user's perspective: what would they think if disabling wifi suddenly made maps very innacurate? That sounds like the start of a bug report to me. Everything doesn't have to be some big nefarious plan. Sometimes the sensible defaults for normal users don't align with privacy-conscious users.
  - carapace 9y ago
    So "normal users" doesn't automatically mean "privacy-conscious users" to you? You also are missing (or trivializing) the problem.
    - infogulch 9y ago
      Serious question: have you met many normal internet users? At risk of being too blunt, "normal" people don't give a shit about privacy. I'm not talking about people that hang out here, or on some irc channel, or pretty much any other tech website. I'm talking about the hundreds of millions of people whose primary internet activities are facebook, google searches, media consumption, and online email, in that order. These people are "normal", by number. Only some of these people are aware of privacy enough to set their facebook profile off of public, and 99% of them never look into any privacy settings past that. If you're privacy-conscious enough to worry about this, you probably don't even have a facebook profile (or at least don't have it installed on your phone), and that by itself puts you squarely outside of normal. Most people don't care. I'm sorry.
      - carapace 9y ago
        I have, and you are correct, and still missing the point. We don't have the right to invade their privacy despite their apathy. That's what you and the other "level-headed" fella are normalizing: the idea that somehow being "a tech company" makes it okay for us to perform mass surveillance and manipulation on our fellow human beings. It's not okay. It's not okay if the people are ignorant of it, and it's still not okay even if they are just apathetic about it. There should be a big ol' OPT IN button for tracking, right up front. If the user doesn't deliberately turn it on (and no fair offering incentives) then they don't get tracked. (We are going to do it anyway, because they are literally too stupid to manage themselves, and they are too stupid to stop us.) I'm actually in favor of total surveillance (I wrote a whole blog post a few years back about how it's the "perfection of Democracy".[1]) What I'm against is the idea that it's fine to "trick" people into being scanned and tracked w/o their knowledge and explicit consent. What we are witnessing is the formation of a split between Morlocks and Eloi. There's a de facto privileged group that benefits from the massive asymmetry in the data collection and analysis machinery, and the "normal people" who now form a digital peasantry and must be content with what we give them. Maybe this is the way it has to be. [1] http://firequery.blogspot.com/2013/10/total-surveillance-is-perfection-of.html http://firequery.blogspot.com/2013/10/total-surveillance-is-...
  - ksk 9y ago
    >It has been known for quite some time that WiFi is used to make the location service more accurate. >what would they think if disabling wifi suddenly made maps very innacurate? Taking everything you said at face value.. So anything less than "more accurate" to you, means "very inaccurate" ?
squeaky-clean 9y ago
Well apparently it's not just my phone using it to track my location. This article convinced me to disable the always on Wi-Fi scanning. > However, Wi-Fi scans are not only used by the device to derive its location, analytics companies now leverage the Wi-Fi probe requests to estimate the number of visitors in stores and malls and to record customer mobility. Indeed, by counting the number of unique MAC addresses broadcast in probe requests, retailers can derive the number of smartphone carriers in their store. Location tracking of these customers is performed by following these MAC addresses as they are heard by antennas located in different spots.
- guelo 9y ago
  Both iOS and Android started randomizing WiFi Mac addresses a few years ago to prevent that kind of tracking.
  - reaperducer 9y ago
    Then how is it possible for my iPhone to connect to my AP that has MAC filtering enabled?
    - guelo 9y ago
      I think the MAC address randomization is only for the scanning, not connecting.
  - damnfine 9y ago
    Just like the tracking companies upgraded to fingerprinting around then.
  - squeaky-clean 9y ago
    I'm just now learning about all this (I'd heard about stores tracking customers, but thought it only worked with Wifi enabled), but it seems many Android phones don't actually do randomization, and it can be easily fingerprinted even if they do. From a 2017 paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1 > First, we show that devices commonly make improper use of randomization by sending wireless frames with the true, global address when they should be using a randomized address. We move on to extend the passive identification techniques of Vanhoef et al. to effectively defeat randomization in ~96% of Android phones. Finally, we show a method that can be used to track 100% of devices using randomization, regardless of manufacturer, by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in the way existing wireless chipsets handle low-level control frames. and near the end of section 4.2 > Therefore we posit that much less than ∼50% of devices conduct randomization.

by guelo 9y ago

carapace 9y ago

I downvoted you for trivializing (or missing) the problem.

infogulch 9y ago
I disagree, gp's is a perfectly valid level headed response. It has been known for quite some time that WiFi is used to make the location service more accurate. Think of it from the typical user's perspective: what would they think if disabling wifi suddenly made maps very innacurate? That sounds like the start of a bug report to me. Everything doesn't have to be some big nefarious plan. Sometimes the sensible defaults for normal users don't align with privacy-conscious users.
- carapace 9y ago
  So "normal users" doesn't automatically mean "privacy-conscious users" to you? You also are missing (or trivializing) the problem.
  - infogulch 9y ago
    Serious question: have you met many normal internet users? At risk of being too blunt, "normal" people don't give a shit about privacy. I'm not talking about people that hang out here, or on some irc channel, or pretty much any other tech website. I'm talking about the hundreds of millions of people whose primary internet activities are facebook, google searches, media consumption, and online email, in that order. These people are "normal", by number. Only some of these people are aware of privacy enough to set their facebook profile off of public, and 99% of them never look into any privacy settings past that. If you're privacy-conscious enough to worry about this, you probably don't even have a facebook profile (or at least don't have it installed on your phone), and that by itself puts you squarely outside of normal. Most people don't care. I'm sorry.
    - carapace 9y ago
      I have, and you are correct, and still missing the point. We don't have the right to invade their privacy despite their apathy. That's what you and the other "level-headed" fella are normalizing: the idea that somehow being "a tech company" makes it okay for us to perform mass surveillance and manipulation on our fellow human beings. It's not okay. It's not okay if the people are ignorant of it, and it's still not okay even if they are just apathetic about it. There should be a big ol' OPT IN button for tracking, right up front. If the user doesn't deliberately turn it on (and no fair offering incentives) then they don't get tracked. (We are going to do it anyway, because they are literally too stupid to manage themselves, and they are too stupid to stop us.) I'm actually in favor of total surveillance (I wrote a whole blog post a few years back about how it's the "perfection of Democracy".[1]) What I'm against is the idea that it's fine to "trick" people into being scanned and tracked w/o their knowledge and explicit consent. What we are witnessing is the formation of a split between Morlocks and Eloi. There's a de facto privileged group that benefits from the massive asymmetry in the data collection and analysis machinery, and the "normal people" who now form a digital peasantry and must be content with what we give them. Maybe this is the way it has to be. [1] http://firequery.blogspot.com/2013/10/total-surveillance-is-perfection-of.html http://firequery.blogspot.com/2013/10/total-surveillance-is-...
- ksk 9y ago
  >It has been known for quite some time that WiFi is used to make the location service more accurate. >what would they think if disabling wifi suddenly made maps very innacurate? Taking everything you said at face value.. So anything less than "more accurate" to you, means "very inaccurate" ?

squeaky-clean 9y ago

Well apparently it's not just my phone using it to track my location. This article convinced me to disable the always on Wi-Fi scanning. > However, Wi-Fi scans are not only used by the device to derive its location, analytics companies now leverage the Wi-Fi probe requests to estimate the number of visitors in stores and malls and to record customer mobility. Indeed, by counting the number of unique MAC addresses broadcast in probe requests, retailers can derive the number of smartphone carriers in their store. Location tracking of these customers is performed by following these MAC addresses as they are heard by antennas located in different spots.

guelo 9y ago
Both iOS and Android started randomizing WiFi Mac addresses a few years ago to prevent that kind of tracking.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Then how is it possible for my iPhone to connect to my AP that has MAC filtering enabled?
  - guelo 9y ago
    I think the MAC address randomization is only for the scanning, not connecting.
- damnfine 9y ago
  Just like the tracking companies upgraded to fingerprinting around then.
- squeaky-clean 9y ago
  I'm just now learning about all this (I'd heard about stores tracking customers, but thought it only worked with Wifi enabled), but it seems many Android phones don't actually do randomization, and it can be easily fingerprinted even if they do. From a 2017 paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1 > First, we show that devices commonly make improper use of randomization by sending wireless frames with the true, global address when they should be using a randomized address. We move on to extend the passive identification techniques of Vanhoef et al. to effectively defeat randomization in ~96% of Android phones. Finally, we show a method that can be used to track 100% of devices using randomization, regardless of manufacturer, by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in the way existing wireless chipsets handle low-level control frames. and near the end of section 4.2 > Therefore we posit that much less than ∼50% of devices conduct randomization.