4 ms·
> ... each unsecured network is the Pineapple responding to a probe request from the iPhone with the name of the SSID it was previously associated with. The nam
by graue 13y ago
> ... each unsecured network is the Pineapple responding to a probe request from the iPhone with the name of the SSID it was previously associated with. The names include that of an old wireless router I replaced some years back, my parents’ network I was connected to interstate just the other day and an airline lounge in a far flung corner of the world.
Whoa, what? This is really how it works? This implies that anywhere you go with your laptop, someone can sit there and get a list of every wifi you've ever connected to. :(
I don't understand why this disclosure is necessary, since you can list all nearby wifis, even ones you've never connected to. Shouldn't it be possible for a wifi client to get a list of all nearby wifis, then only attempt to connect to the one it knows, without telling the others anything about what it's looking for?
Didn't finish reading the article, because it's going step by step and I don't plan to actually set up a Pineapple, but this surprising bit was the main takeaway for me.
- thejosh 13y agoYes. Want to know something scarier? Snoopy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsn7_4qUdwk&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsn7_4qUdwk&feature=youtu.be . Well worth the watch.
- sehugg 13y agoBlog post about it: http://www.sensepost.com/blog/7557.html http://www.sensepost.com/blog/7557.html
- tobyjsullivan 13y agoThis surprised me as well. I would speculate it is motivated by networks with SSID broadcast turned off. You'd never find them by parsing the network list.
- graue 13y agoMakes sense, but I've never ever used such a network and so would gladly turn off this feature. :( It looks like the iPhone is (or was, as of 2012) uniquely bad because it leaks recently used MAC addresses, while it's common for devices to leak names but not MAC addresses: http://seclists.org/dailydave/2012/q1/59 http://seclists.org/dailydave/2012/q1/59
- stingraycharles 13y agoYes, that's exactly how this works. The way to solve it would be for a device to compare the last known BSSID of an access point to that of the device it's about to connect to (similar to comparing MAC addresses). Except that almost no one does this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_set_(802.11_network)#Basic_service_set_identification_.28BSSID.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_set_(802.11_network)#Ba...
- annnnd 13y agoPotential solution on OS level: 1) when connecting to a network for the first time, remember its location 2) only send out those SSIDs that belong to networks which are close to your current location Does anything like that exist? Maybe for Android?
- stingraycharles 13y agoHow would that work with location unaware devices?
- ZoF 13y agoIt wouldn't.