5 ms·

>And what do we do, when we want to find out a location associated with a wifi name? We go to wigle.net, enter the SSID (=wifi name) and it tells us where on th

>And what do we do, when we want to find out a location associated with a wifi name? We go to wigle.net, enter the SSID (=wifi name) and it tells us where on the world it is found. I've always enjoyed having unique/personal SSIDs, but had never seriously considered this consequence. I wonder what the worlds generic SSIDs are.

jon-wood 5y ago
If you're ok with people's devices making attempts at connecting, eduroam, or some variant of Starbuck's Wifi might be good options. There'll be APs broadcasting those SSIDs all over the world.
Hamuko 5y ago
"Home" returns quite a lot of results in my area on Wigle.net despite the fact that English isn't an official language here. You can probably pick and choose any generic Wi-Fi router manufacturer name. "Linksys" paints the map pretty well.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
There's a good chance he could have also recovered a MAC from logs etc. What's more important is that you don't set your SSID to hidden: Someone needs to broadcast the SSID for the connection to work, and if it isn't the AP, it will be your mobile device broadcasting it everywhere you go!
fnord77 5y ago
https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats
CGamesPlay 5y ago
Consequence of the generic SSID is that your device will try to connect to any instance of this SSID and re-prompt for a password when it fails to do so.
egypturnash 5y ago
A little browsing around wigle.net brings me to a page listing SSIDs and manufacturers: https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats xfinitywifi is the top, with 2% of the routers seen having that name; it's followed by XFINITY (.73%), BTWiFi-with-FON (.38%), linksys (.37%), BTWifi-X (.35%), <no ssid> (.31%). The next one is AndroidAP at .28% and that feels like a good place to stop copying data, go look at the page if you wanna see more of the world's generic SSIDs. Basically "manufacturer name" and "internet provider name" dominate.
greg5green 5y ago
This feels like something that's "security by obscurity" vs. "security by obscurity." Would you rather be obscure because you have the same SSID as everyone else so no one guesses which is yours or obscure because you have the same SSID as everyone else and no one knows which is yours, but it's easier to see what is going on inside the network? One comes with more easily identifying you/your network while the other comes with being more easily hacked by readily available rainbow tables (I think, but am not sure, that WPA3 fixed this, but WPA1/WPA2 use the SSID as a salt for the password)

jon-wood 5y ago

If you're ok with people's devices making attempts at connecting, eduroam, or some variant of Starbuck's Wifi might be good options. There'll be APs broadcasting those SSIDs all over the world.

Hamuko 5y ago

"Home" returns quite a lot of results in my area on Wigle.net despite the fact that English isn't an official language here. You can probably pick and choose any generic Wi-Fi router manufacturer name. "Linksys" paints the map pretty well.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

There's a good chance he could have also recovered a MAC from logs etc. What's more important is that you don't set your SSID to hidden: Someone needs to broadcast the SSID for the connection to work, and if it isn't the AP, it will be your mobile device broadcasting it everywhere you go!

fnord77 5y ago

https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats

CGamesPlay 5y ago

Consequence of the generic SSID is that your device will try to connect to any instance of this SSID and re-prompt for a password when it fails to do so.

egypturnash 5y ago

A little browsing around wigle.net brings me to a page listing SSIDs and manufacturers: https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats https://wigle.net/stats#ssidstats xfinitywifi is the top, with 2% of the routers seen having that name; it's followed by XFINITY (.73%), BTWiFi-with-FON (.38%), linksys (.37%), BTWifi-X (.35%), <no ssid> (.31%). The next one is AndroidAP at .28% and that feels like a good place to stop copying data, go look at the page if you wanna see more of the world's generic SSIDs. Basically "manufacturer name" and "internet provider name" dominate.

greg5green 5y ago

This feels like something that's "security by obscurity" vs. "security by obscurity." Would you rather be obscure because you have the same SSID as everyone else so no one guesses which is yours or obscure because you have the same SSID as everyone else and no one knows which is yours, but it's easier to see what is going on inside the network? One comes with more easily identifying you/your network while the other comes with being more easily hacked by readily available rainbow tables (I think, but am not sure, that WPA3 fixed this, but WPA1/WPA2 use the SSID as a salt for the password)