Hacker News Reader

Comment by mirimir | Hacker News Reader

It's not just phones. And you don't need GPS to get GPS-level location accuracy. All that you need is WiFi capability.

Because WiFi devices scan for APs. And there are databases of GPS-located APs. Located by other GPS-enabled pawns, as it happens. So if you're using anything Google related, or other apps that access such data, you can be tracked. Just from WiFi. Without a cellular radio, or GPS.

View on HN

To add to this, if an AP has monitor mode capabilities then our device's don't even need to be connected to the AP via WiFi to be tracked. They just need to have WiFi turned on and sending out probes.

Yes, but that's just about being tracked by the WiFi AP itself. But as I understand it, being tracked by apps on your device doesn't depend on the AP having monitor mode capability. APs get geolocated primarily by GPS-capable smartphones. And then devices get geolocated based on proximity to such APs. Basically, through latency-based triangulation.

In the main station of the city I live in there literally are two access points called 2.4 GHz survey and 5 GHz survey.

iOS no longer gives apps a list of nearby APs (unless they have location access anyway), for precisely this reason.

Simple triangulation of any dumb phone that hasn't even got a sim card inserted is enough tracking for most surveillance governments. Unless of course we move to a world where people without sim cards become a significant minority or registering a sim card isn't so invasive.

Yes, I get that.

But many people probably don't realize that portable computers with WiFi can be geolocated just as well as phones. Better than dumb phones, even.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com