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> Most SSIDs are not unique It's enough to look at your profile to find out you're in Stamford, so locally unique is sufficient. I don't intend to find out you

> Most SSIDs are not unique It's enough to look at your profile to find out you're in Stamford, so locally unique is sufficient. I don't intend to find out your address, but it is usually quite easy to narrow down someones location to state or city level (you'd probably be able to do the same for me). So unless there are hundreds of SSIDs with the same name in your city, finding you is probably not that hard. For mine, state would be sufficient. > and can't be used to geolocate on their own. Sure thing! https://wigle.net/ https://wigle.net/ has a perfectly fine API which allows you to search by SSID.

nexuist 5y ago
I'm not in Stamford, but nice try :) Regardless you didn't use my SSID to figure that out, which is my point, we all have lots of data points out there that are more public than SSIDs and those will be used to compromise us much faster than the SSID method will.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > I'm not in Stamford, but nice try :) I really though you'd study CompSci ;) Oh well. > Regardless you didn't use my SSID to figure that out, which is my point, we all have lots of data points out there that are more public than SSIDs and those will be used to compromise us much faster than the SSID method will. I think we intermingled two separate points there: - An SSID is not unique. My point was, despite this being true, it is usually possible to narrow down the location far enough using auxiliary information so that an SSID is sufficiently unique. That was the point of my previous response to you. - An SSID is usually not considered sensitive. For the two of us there are enough other data points, but quite a few people prefer not to have their nick linked to their real name. I doubt they are aware how fatal sharing it would be. As mentioned in sister comments, the name is also quite often in crash logs, so something as simple as seeking technical help might lead to your home address being compromised. Now, this list is surely not the end of the world, but the privacy implications are pretty bad IMO.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    I can agree with this. It's not ideal at all.

nexuist 5y ago

I'm not in Stamford, but nice try :) Regardless you didn't use my SSID to figure that out, which is my point, we all have lots of data points out there that are more public than SSIDs and those will be used to compromise us much faster than the SSID method will.

Sebb767 5y ago
> I'm not in Stamford, but nice try :) I really though you'd study CompSci ;) Oh well. > Regardless you didn't use my SSID to figure that out, which is my point, we all have lots of data points out there that are more public than SSIDs and those will be used to compromise us much faster than the SSID method will. I think we intermingled two separate points there: - An SSID is not unique. My point was, despite this being true, it is usually possible to narrow down the location far enough using auxiliary information so that an SSID is sufficiently unique. That was the point of my previous response to you. - An SSID is usually not considered sensitive. For the two of us there are enough other data points, but quite a few people prefer not to have their nick linked to their real name. I doubt they are aware how fatal sharing it would be. As mentioned in sister comments, the name is also quite often in crash logs, so something as simple as seeking technical help might lead to your home address being compromised. Now, this list is surely not the end of the world, but the privacy implications are pretty bad IMO.
- nexuist 5y ago
  I can agree with this. It's not ideal at all.