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Show HN: BeaconDB – An Alternative to Mozilla Location Services
- a2800276 2y agoWasn't the main issue with MLS that they got patent trolled/sued by Skyhook? Anyone know the patents involved and how beacon DB is avoiding the issues?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _k2vp 2y agoApple probably has one of the largest databases. Their API is unauthenticated and not rate limited either. Can be used for both APs and cell towers: https://github.com/acheong08/apple-corelocation-experiments https://github.com/acheong08/apple-corelocation-experiments
- FireInsight 2y agoReading the MLS retirement issue[1] it seems that multiple established organizations (e foundation, Graphene) are also interested in providing an alternative service. Does this mean that we're now in a situation where multiple open source location service providers are competing, or is this the only publicly accessible project in this space for now? This project is cool and all, but seems to just be a one person effort with not a lot of engagement on GitHub[2]. Are you in talks with other people with similar goals to expand and collaborate on the project? Having the backing of an existing developer community could really bring this to the next level. 1) https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea/issues/2065 https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea/issues/2065 2) https://github.com/beacondb/beacondb https://github.com/beacondb/beacondb Edit: the actual project seems to be on Codeberg[3], where there is a bit more engagement from others than the primary dev. 3) https://codeberg.org/beacondb https://codeberg.org/beacondb
- joelkoen 2y agobeaconDB is currently the only publicly accessible project, but I am currently discussing working together with various other projects and organisations. The project was originally on GitHub, but it has now moved to Codeberg.
- gnufx 2y agoFor what it's worth, /e/ OS is now using its own location service, but I don't know what, if anything, restricts access to it.
- denysvitali 2y agoLast time I looked into something like this for GrapheneOS it wasn't possible to provide a custom location service. It would be awesome to have this on GrapheneOS - so I'm very happy if someone knows a way to do this without using microG (I use the sandboxed GMS)
- cimm 2y ago> ethically sourced: opt-in only data collection Good on them but how does this work? If my neighbour scans my WiFi network and uploads it to BeaconDB I didn’t exactly opt-in, did I? The privacy policy mentions you can add ‘_optout’ to the WiFi name, so it’s more opt-out instead of opt-in?
- FireInsight 2y agoThe person collecting the data opted in to doing it, heh. As far as the data collectors are concerned, your wifi is out in the public.
- joelkoen 2y agoThis line refers to opting in to using your device to collect this data. Apple and Google are taking advantage of their global user coverage by using their devices to collect this data without their consent. Your WiFi network is broadcasting its presence 10 times a second in all directions. It is well known that you should not put sensitive information in your network SSID, for example, as anybody nearby can pick that up. Hence, you can opt out here instead.
- dividuum 2y agoWhile most users probably don't realize that they contribute to Wifi crowd sourcing, AFAIR using locations services is opt-in on iOS. So "without their consent" doesn't seem true. The info popup also explicitly mentions the WiFi location crowd sourcing.
- axelthegerman 2y agoSure but any opt-in iOS user walking past other people's wifi is crowd sourcing those networks without the network operators consent. Unless they only contribute networks that the device has authenticated with.
- fc_on_hn 2y ago> If my neighbour scans my WiFi network and uploads it to BeaconDB I didn’t exactly opt-in, did I? To clarify: all phones doing geolocation are already uploading your AP macaddr to remote location services, but BeaconDB will *not* publish this information in cleartext. Any data dump will contain only non-reversible cryptographically hashed data or aggregated data.
- disparate4927 2y agoReally nice, hopefully more software switches to this, I'm 100% gonna contribute
- yxOverKill 2y agoThis is such a cool project. Always glad to see problem solvers filling the void left by MLS. (Unrelated, but the design looks great!)
- joelkoen 2y agoThank you, this means a lot!
- k__ 2y agoIs there a reason the API doesn't return the locations of the access points so the clients can calculate their positions by themselves?
- joelkoen 2y agoThis is planned to help clients cache data locally, which would improve the privacy of the client and reduce server load. I would like to implement this over the next few days. I have not yet found any clients that have implemented making use of such data, please let me know if you have found one or are developing one.
- k__ 2y agoAh, okay. I was just thinking if there were any technical constraints preventing this. Because you mention Ichnaea API compatibility, and I didn't know if that spec even allows that.
- dangoodmanUT 2y agoIs this only offered as an API? E.g. you can't dump it and analyze locally?
- dangoodmanUT 2y ago> data dumps are currently not available as I'm still researching the measures I need to take to protect the privacy of both contributors and AP owners. Ah
- joelkoen 2y agoYes, I really want to be able to release data dumps as this opens up a lot of great opportunities. I'm also worried that people may have lost trust in a service like MLS now that it has shutdown and abandoned all of the data contributors had collected. At the moment, there simply isn't enough data to anonymise contributions.
- dangoodmanUT 2y agoThe author doesn't seem to have an open source mobile app or anything that would allow them to source the data from devices themselves. I'm curious where the data was collected from, esp. if it was opt-in (at the collecting device)
- joelkoen 2y agoI haven't built any apps for contributing to beaconDB as of yet. The website links to NeoStumbler and TowerCollector, which are Android apps that can be used to collect this data.
- dangoodmanUT 2y agoThanks, based on the copy I thought it was recently opened to contribution, and the original dataset had come from somewhere else.
- dangoodmanUT 2y agoI am curious what would cause such a distributed user base to contribute to this though?
- joelkoen 2y agoDistributed referring to the community not yet recognising one specific software as "the go to"? Or distributed physically?
- dangoodmanUT 2y agoPhysically! Like how so many users from all over the place decided to contribute to this
- joelkoen 2y agoIt is rather surprising how many people have started contributing already. I believe that people want to support alternatives to big tech so they aren't completely reliant on these providers, and beaconDB is currently the only database not owned by big tech. Not 100% sure that answers your question :)
- chaz6 2y agoAs nobody has yet mentioned it, there is also WiGLE [1] which has tracked over a billion unique networks. [1] https://wigle.net/ https://wigle.net/
- jrexilius 2y agoI was just going to ask, what ever happened to WiGLE and why build a clone of it rather than add to it?
- _lvbh 2y agoWiGLE severely rate limits their APIs and don’t even allow normal people to pay for more access. They refuse to provide a data dump since they sell it for enterprise. No academic access either. People literally spend their time mapping APs and they don’t even get anything in return
- iJohnDoe 2y agoThe couple of times I did a lookup it was woefully outdated as well.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jacooper 2y agoHope GrapheneOS adds support for this soon, as currently their non-Google GPS Provider is basically hopeless unless you are outside.
- chenfeiyu132 2y agoCurious if the last data dump from MLS can still be downloaded anywhere? I can't seem to find it online. I'm working on a project that locates the connected tower based on mcc, mnc, cid, etc. Currently only sourcing data from opencellid and combain, this would be a great addition!
- joelkoen 2y agoIt is archived here: https://archive.org/details/MLS_Full_Cell_Export_Final https://archive.org/details/MLS_Full_Cell_Export_Final
- malteg 2y agoWould be nice to see some cooperation with geoclue2, as they now disabled location guessing for wifi as MLS shuts downs. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/geoclue/geoclue https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/geoclue/geoclue