5 ms·

So I have to change my custom Wi-Fi SSD (something that I like) and add a brain-dead suffix called "_nomap" to prevent Google from tracking me? Who the hell gre

So I have to change my custom Wi-Fi SSD (something that I like) and add a brain-dead suffix called "_nomap" to prevent Google from tracking me? Who the hell greenlights such changes?

mikro2nd 5y ago
So my network just became "Google Listening Post _nomap"...
- laurent92 5y ago
  I think people have been condemned for insults over SSID, so trademarks definitely apply ;)
- godelski 5y ago
  > Google/Microsoft Listening Post _optout_nomap FTFY
  - mikro2nd 5y ago
    To be clear, it was already "Google Listening Post" before I learned of this opt-out thing. The 5GHz network is/was "Facebook Listening Post _nomap" I find it absurd that we have to put this guff into our own networks just to opt out of the surveillance panopticon.
extra88 5y ago
Your router is publicly broadcasting its SSID ("Pretty fly for a WiFi" or whatever). Google Street View cars, Android devices, etc. have noticed the SSID in their vicinity and submitted the SSID with an approximate location to database. Now, when another device using Google's location service is trying determine it's location, it can submit the list of SSIDs (including yours) it can detect to get back a fairly accurate location. If you add "_nomap" to your SSID, Google won't use it; it's crude because broadcasting metadata along with SSIDs isn't a part of the WiFi specs. I don't see how using public router SSIDs as a landmark is "tracking you." If you use Google location services to determine your location based on your SSID or others, particularly while logged in to a Google account, then in some sense they're tracking you.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  My presence on a public street isn't "private" per se, but following me around recording everywhere I go on public streets is definitely tracking me. Not all wifi networks are stationary. I doubt most people know to add a _nomap to their hotspot name to avoid being tracked.
  - extra88 5y ago
    I expect that if an SSID is not associated with a stable location, it's not even stored in the db because it doesn't serve the purpose of being a landmark (or stores it but with "hotspot," based on some heuristic, and therefore unreliable for location mapping).
    - bingidingi 5y ago
      Doesn't really matter what you expect, they're collecting the data and there's no evidence that they aren't using it to track... so we have to assume they do. Remember they were going as far as collecting data from people's networks using their Google Maps wifi-sniffing vehicles before they were caught.
      - extra88 5y ago
        > we have to assume they do No we don't. > collecting data from people's networks using their Google Maps wifi-sniffing vehicles That was an error due to misconfiguration, failing to discard the data beyond that which identified the network for location mapping.
        josefx 5y ago
        First link[1] I found says otherwise, unless you consider having a plan to collect and analyze email, phone numbers and other information from the payload data and having internal reviews of the code intended to do just that to be a "configuration error"? People really should stop trusting everything known habitual liars / big corporations say. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/ https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/
criley2 5y ago
It's kind of an interesting problem because Google drives cars around and reads the all the networks and saves the location for use later. Even if you don't use Android, just like they took a picture of your front door with their car, they wrote down the name of publicly broadcast networks as they drove by. Should there be a way to tell the Google cameras to turn off when they drive by, and similarly, to tell the Google wifi setups to ignore our publicly broadcast network? I imagine they have the right to take pictures from the street and record publicly broadcast names. It seems like the entire specification of wifi should evolve to natively build these flags into how we manage our wifi, but even then, could we ever prevent a car driving by from reading the name of our SSID and logging the location and name for their personal use? Perhaps the solution is that we should not publicly broadcast our SSID at all. Like bluetooth, we should "pair" and then stop the broadcast.
- callmeal 5y ago
  >It's kind of an interesting problem because Google drives cars around and reads the all the networks and saves the location for use later. It's worse than that: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/engineer-in-googles-street-view-is-identified.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/engineer-in-go... A Google engineer went a step further, however, the F.C.C. report said, and included code to collect unencrypted data sent from homes by computers — e-mails and Internet searches — as specially equipped cars drove by. That data collection occurred from 2007 to 2010. Google long maintained that the engineer was solely responsible for this aspect of the project, which resulted in official investigations, some still unresolved, in more than a dozen countries. But a complete version of the F.C.C.’s report, released by Google on Saturday, has cast doubt on that explanation, saying that the engineer informed at least one superior and that seven engineers who worked on the code were all in a position to know what was going on.

So I have to change my custom Wi-Fi SSD (something that I like) and add a brain-dead suffix called "_nomap" to prevent Google from tracking me? Who the hell greenlights such changes?

mikro2nd 5y ago

So my network just became "Google Listening Post _nomap"...

laurent92 5y ago
I think people have been condemned for insults over SSID, so trademarks definitely apply ;)
godelski 5y ago
> Google/Microsoft Listening Post _optout_nomap FTFY
- mikro2nd 5y ago
  To be clear, it was already "Google Listening Post" before I learned of this opt-out thing. The 5GHz network is/was "Facebook Listening Post _nomap" I find it absurd that we have to put this guff into our own networks just to opt out of the surveillance panopticon.

extra88 5y ago

Your router is publicly broadcasting its SSID ("Pretty fly for a WiFi" or whatever). Google Street View cars, Android devices, etc. have noticed the SSID in their vicinity and submitted the SSID with an approximate location to database. Now, when another device using Google's location service is trying determine it's location, it can submit the list of SSIDs (including yours) it can detect to get back a fairly accurate location. If you add "_nomap" to your SSID, Google won't use it; it's crude because broadcasting metadata along with SSIDs isn't a part of the WiFi specs. I don't see how using public router SSIDs as a landmark is "tracking you." If you use Google location services to determine your location based on your SSID or others, particularly while logged in to a Google account, then in some sense they're tracking you.

shkkmo 5y ago
My presence on a public street isn't "private" per se, but following me around recording everywhere I go on public streets is definitely tracking me. Not all wifi networks are stationary. I doubt most people know to add a _nomap to their hotspot name to avoid being tracked.
- extra88 5y ago
  I expect that if an SSID is not associated with a stable location, it's not even stored in the db because it doesn't serve the purpose of being a landmark (or stores it but with "hotspot," based on some heuristic, and therefore unreliable for location mapping).
  - bingidingi 5y ago
    Doesn't really matter what you expect, they're collecting the data and there's no evidence that they aren't using it to track... so we have to assume they do. Remember they were going as far as collecting data from people's networks using their Google Maps wifi-sniffing vehicles before they were caught.
    - extra88 5y ago
      > we have to assume they do No we don't. > collecting data from people's networks using their Google Maps wifi-sniffing vehicles That was an error due to misconfiguration, failing to discard the data beyond that which identified the network for location mapping.
      - josefx 5y ago
        First link[1] I found says otherwise, unless you consider having a plan to collect and analyze email, phone numbers and other information from the payload data and having internal reviews of the code intended to do just that to be a "configuration error"? People really should stop trusting everything known habitual liars / big corporations say. [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/ https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

criley2 5y ago

It's kind of an interesting problem because Google drives cars around and reads the all the networks and saves the location for use later. Even if you don't use Android, just like they took a picture of your front door with their car, they wrote down the name of publicly broadcast networks as they drove by. Should there be a way to tell the Google cameras to turn off when they drive by, and similarly, to tell the Google wifi setups to ignore our publicly broadcast network? I imagine they have the right to take pictures from the street and record publicly broadcast names. It seems like the entire specification of wifi should evolve to natively build these flags into how we manage our wifi, but even then, could we ever prevent a car driving by from reading the name of our SSID and logging the location and name for their personal use? Perhaps the solution is that we should not publicly broadcast our SSID at all. Like bluetooth, we should "pair" and then stop the broadcast.

callmeal 5y ago
>It's kind of an interesting problem because Google drives cars around and reads the all the networks and saves the location for use later. It's worse than that: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/engineer-in-googles-street-view-is-identified.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/engineer-in-go... A Google engineer went a step further, however, the F.C.C. report said, and included code to collect unencrypted data sent from homes by computers — e-mails and Internet searches — as specially equipped cars drove by. That data collection occurred from 2007 to 2010. Google long maintained that the engineer was solely responsible for this aspect of the project, which resulted in official investigations, some still unresolved, in more than a dozen countries. But a complete version of the F.C.C.’s report, released by Google on Saturday, has cast doubt on that explanation, saying that the engineer informed at least one superior and that seven engineers who worked on the code were all in a position to know what was going on.