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One should realize that what they call ‘track user locations’ is actually ‘get a list of visible SSIDs’. Should be behind a permissions check, but not the end
by tinus_hn 3y ago
One should realize that what they call ‘track user locations’ is actually ‘get a list of visible SSIDs’.
Should be behind a permissions check, but not the end of the world.
- School-Cotton 3y agoVisible SSIDs are absolutely used to fingerprint location.
- dmboyd 3y agoAt least in the early days, every iPhone maintained a local lookup table between ssids and gps coordinates in a SQLite database. https://www.networkworld.com/article/752872/security-apple-officially-responds-to-ios-consolidated-db-tracking-file-controversy.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/752872/security-apple-o...
- tinus_hn 3y agoThat doesn’t mean seeing an SSID means you are at exactly that location. If you are in a city you see 50 SSIDs at any given moment. Are you at those 50 locations at the same time? No. Is there a way to triangulate where you are exactly? No, its unreliable and not an exact science.
- charcircuit 3y ago>Is there a way to triangulate where you are exactly? No The phone knows the signal strength of each ssid. Why can't it triangulate where it is?
- School-Cotton 3y agoIt can and does.
- ycombinatrix 3y agoyou're all over these comments trying to convince everyone that SSIDs can't be used to determine location, yet you don't know how triangulation works? are you trolling?
- tinus_hn 3y ago[flagged]
- stavros 3y ago"Get a list of visible SSIDs" is exactly how phones derive your location. There's little distinction between seeing SSIDs and seeing GPS coordinates for 99.9% of the population.
- tinus_hn 3y agoBack in the real world SSIDs are a very coarse and not very reliable way of locating devices. You are exaggerating.
- pornel 3y agoVisibility of multiple networks can be used to refine the position. GPS takes time to acquire and isn't always available indoors. SSID method is quicker, and it's most likely the method your phone uses to get the position first.
- tinus_hn 3y agoAs you say, it’s a method to get a coarse location and then refined using GPS which by the way does not really take time to acquire once you have downloaded the almanac and have the coarse location. So this ‘allows applications to track location’ actually allows applications to track coarse location which then does not allow them to refine using GPS.
- pornel 3y ago10-meter accuracy is not coarse location. Even for a single router the Wi-Fi range gives street-level address. I’d say city level position (a good case of reverse IP mapping) is a coarse location.
- beardyw 3y agoI built a small ap on an ESP (where SSID scanning is bread and butter). It would track my location to within a few yards. The down side is it needs multiple SSIDs to do that, so not so useful outside an urban environment.
- handsclean 3y agoIt’s the same thing. Listing visible SSIDs and comparing them to very comprehensive databases is the whole way precise geolocation works in many devices, like MacBooks. I think even phone navigation has GPS much less precise than you see on screen, and the extra precision is gained with this technique. Making this technique really work is a large part of the reason Google drove or walked every street in the world with their recording gig.
- ycombinatrix 3y agoOne should realize that what they call ‘track user locations’ is actually ‘receive GPS radio signals’. Should be behind a permissions check, but not the end of the world. lol